Stacey S. Horn

Special issue introduction: new research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: studying lives in context.

In the past three decades there has been growing attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth among adolescence researchers. Beginning with a few seminal studies on the risk-factors, particularly suicide, faced by lesbian and gay youth (Martin and Hetrick 1988), research on these populations has emerged over the past 30 years as an important and critical area within the study of adolescence. Despite the proliferation of research, investigations of LGBT youth still remain largely oriented toward studying deficits such as the role of victimization on mental and physical health, academic achievement, and identity development (Espelage and Swearer 2008). In recent years, researchers have begun to criticize research paradigms that focus on sexual minority youth as ‘‘at-risk’’ and suggest that these paradigms contribute to a social context that views these youth as deficient (Savin-Williams 2005; Russell 2005). While it is necessary to continue examining of risks and challenges faced by these youth, as with any population of youth, it is important to acknowledge these criticisms and to incorporate additional perspectives of LGBT youths lives and to view these youth as resilient and thriving rather than simply ‘‘at-risk’’. Yet much of the work from this ‘‘new’’ paradigm continues to treat sexual minority youth as a monothilic or homogeneous group and fails to examine the ways in which the social contexts that shape the lives of LGBT youth influence the persistent inequalities in health risk behavior, mental health, and long-term psychosocial adjustment of LGBT youth and adults. With this special issue we propose a paradigm that moves beyond studying LGBT youth as either at-risk OR resilient, but rather that focuses on understanding the ways in which LGBT youth negotiate their development within various social contexts. By expanding the paradigm to consider the role of context in the lives of LGBT youth, we can begin to understand not only the complex and nuanced ways that individuals’ lives are shaped by their social contexts, but also the ways that individual characteristics (such as temperament or gender) impact the ways that LGBT youth engage with and experience their social world. For example, while it is likely the case that homophobic and heterosexist schools have a negative impact on all LGBT youth, this type of negative or hostile climate may be particularly salient for young people questioning their sexual orientation or for those young people who do not have support systems in other arenas of their lives (such as families or peer groups). As a whole, the papers in this volume attempt to move the field beyond the ‘‘at-risk’’ or ‘‘resilient’’ paradigms by exploring the complex ways young people construct an understanding of their identities, their experiences, and the social contexts in which they are engaged, as well as the varied ways that context matters in the health and development of LGBT youth. In this collection of articles, authors cover a range of topics that contribute to our understanding of the lives of LGBT youth in context. Not surprisingly, several studies focus on the experience of harassment and victimization (e.g., Almeida et al. 2009). The last decades have seen notable attention to concerns for LGBT students; several of the articles included here focus on understanding and S. S. Horn (&) University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: staceyhorn@gmail.com

Drinking patterns, problems, and motivations among collegiate bisexual women

Objective and Participants: The authors compared the drinking behaviors, motivations, and problems of collegiate bisexual women with those of heterosexual women (N = 2,788; n = 86 bisexual women). Methods: Data came from the 2003 Student Life Survey, a random population-based survey at a large midwestern university. The authors explored the hypothesis that bisexual women would be more likely than heterosexual women to report drinking motivations related to stress and coping as a result of sexual identity stigma. Results: They found that bisexual women drank significantly less than did heterosexual women. There were few differences between the 2 groups in drinking motivations and problems. Bisexual women reported a comparable number of problems related to their drinking but were significantly more likely to report contemplating suicide after drinking than were heterosexual women. Conclusions: More research is needed to understand the finding that despite lower levels of alcohol consumption, bisexual women reported a comparable number of drinking problems. College health educators and health care providers need to be aware of findings related to heightened suicidal risk among bisexual women.

School Differences in Heterosexual Students' Attitudes About Homosexuality and Prejudice Based on Sexual Orientation

In this study, we investigated the relationships between school context and heterosexual adolescents’ social reasoning regarding same-sex sexuality and sexual prejudice. One thousand seventy-six adolescents (Female, n=648; Male, n=428) attending two high schools that differed in the degree to which they implemented practices to increase the safety and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT students) responded to a questionnaire regarding their attitudes and beliefs about homosexuality and their judgments regarding excluding and teasing lesbian, gay, and gender non-conforming peers. The results of the study suggest that safe schools practices are related to more tolerant and less stereotypical attitudes among heterosexual students; particularly regarding gay male sexuality. This study provides additional evidence that adolescents’ social reasoning about sexual prejudice is complex and multidimensional.

Mean Girls or Cultural Stereotypes

In the past few years, the media and the popular press have inundated us with messages that a particular kind of aggression, aggression that causes harm to a persons’ social standing or relationships, is on the rise; particularly among girls. These portrayals of social or relational aggression in the popular media paint a picture of girls as gossiping, back-biting and manipulative, and try to make the case that this type of aggression is inherently female in nature. Is this really the case, however? Are social and relational aggression particular only to girls, and if so, why? Marion K. Underwood’s book, Social Aggression among Girls, does an excellent job of answering these and many other questions regarding the ways in which girls express their anger and aggression. While the focus of the book is on girls and social aggression, defined by Underwood as ‘behavior directed toward harming another’s friendships, social status, or self-esteem’ [Galen & Underwood, 1997, as cited in Underwood, 2003, p. 5], Underwood provides an overview and review of literature regarding all types of aggression (social, relational, indirect, verbal, and physical) not only in girls but boys as well. This book should appeal to both scholars and practitioners interested in peer relationships, peer harassment, aggression, and/or girls’ development. In this review I will focus on two critical sets of questions that the book raises. First, what is social aggression? How is it defined and how does it relate to other forms of non-physical aggression? Is it a personality trait or behavior? Is it negative and maladaptive or do some forms of social aggression serve developmental functions? Second, what does it really mean when we say, ‘social aggression is more prevalent in girls?,’ and how do our conceptualizations of gender impact on our understanding of aggression in children and adolescents?

Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gays Among American and Dutch Adolescents

Attitudes toward lesbians and gays vary across national populations, and previous research has found relatively more accepting attitudes in the Netherlands as compared to the United States. In this study, we compared beliefs about and attitudes toward lesbians and gays in samples of Dutch and American heterosexual adolescents, utilizing survey data from 1,080 American adolescents (mean age = 15.86 years) attending two schools and from 1,391 Dutch adolescents (mean age = 16.27 years) attending eight schools. Findings indicated the Dutch participants were more tolerant of lesbians and gays, after adjusting for the gender, age, and racial/ethnic minority status of the participants. However, between-country differences were attenuated by accounting for the beliefs about lesbians and gays that participants used to justify their attitudes. American participants were more likely to justify their attitudes using beliefs related to social norms and religious opposition, while the Dutch participants were more likely to justify their attitudes using beliefs related to individual rights and the biological/genetic basis of homosexuality. The results suggest that the relative importance of particular beliefs about lesbians and gays to attitudes at the group level may be context dependent but also that certain beliefs are salient to attitudes across national contexts.

Gay-Straight Alliances as Settings for Youth Inclusion and Development: Future Conceptual and Methodological Directions for Research on These and Other Student Groups in Schools:

Outside the immediate classroom setting, efforts within other school spaces also can shape school climate, address inequality, and affect student performance. Nevertheless, in this respect there has been little research on school-based extracurricular groups focused on issues of social inclusion and justice. An exception to this lack of focus has been Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs), which promote social inclusion and justice for sexual and gender minority youth (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning youth; LGBTQ) through support, socializing, education, and advocacy. As this literature has matured, we detail and provide examples of the following conceptual and methodological recommendations to address emerging research needs for GSAs: (1) Move from a monolithic to contextualized treatment of GSAs, (2) attend to heterogeneity among members, (3) utilize multiple data sources for triangulation, (4) apply a range of methodological approaches to capitalize on strengths of different designs, (5) collect longitudinal data over short-term and extended time periods, and (6) consider GSAs within a broader umbrella of youth settings. Further, we note ways in which these recommendations apply to other student groups organized around specific sociocultural identities. These advances could produce more comprehensive empirically supported models to guide GSAs and similar groups on how to promote resilience among their diverse members and address broader social issues within their schools.

Ecologies of School Discipline for Queer Youth: What Listening to Queer Youth Teaches Us About Transforming School Discipline

Bellinger et al. feature queer youths’ voices to illuminate the ways in which they are formally and informally sanctioned, disciplined, and pushed out of school. The authors investigate two under-explored questions: (1) how do queer youth’s experiences with school discipline relate to their intersecting identities? and (2) how are those discipline experiences connected to and/or shaped by their experiences with bullying and harassment? Three themes emerged: schools as sites of gender normativity and regulation, complex social ecologies of school discipline, and acts of resistance and self-advocacy. The authors recommend a comprehensive, contextualized approach to rectify the disparate impact of school discipline on queer youth to uncover, understand, and respond to the ways institutional and interpersonal biases (direct and implicit) play out in school communities.

Parents’ attitudes toward comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education

Purpose – Parents are sometimes perceived as barriers to providing comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education to young people. However, little is known about parents’ actual attitudes towards providing such broad information to young people. The purpose of this paper is to examine two different approaches to measuring parents’ attitudes towards sexuality information, a programme title approach and a topic-centred approach. Design/methodology/approach – Illinois parents of adolescents (n=301) indicated their knowledge about and attitudes towards sexuality education programmes and 18 sexual health topics via online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine whether parents’ attitudes were more consistent with a programme-centred (i.e. abstinence-only, comprehensive) or a topic-centred (i.e. physical health, sexual and gender identity, pleasure, and relationships) approach. Findings – Parents were uncertain about what form of sexuality education was offered but most were equally comfortabl...

The right to be who you are: Competing tensions among protection, survival, and participation related to youth sexuality and gender

This volume constitutes a comprehensive treatment of critical perspectives concerning children s rights in their various forms.

Adolescents’ judgments of homophobic harassment toward male and female victims: The role of gender stereotypes

Abstract One hundred and fifty-six adolescents, drawn from a high school in a Midwestern suburb, provided judgments of a hypothetical incident of homophobic harassment with either a male or female victim. Participants also completed a revised version of the Macho Scale, measuring their endorsement of gender stereotypes (α = .75). Without the interaction term, victim gender was not predictive of judgments of the harassment, however, endorsement of gender stereotypes decreased the odds of believing the behavior was completely wrong (χ2 (1) = 9.18, p = .00). Once added, the interaction term was the only significant variable in the model, demonstrating that endorsement of gender stereotypes has an effect on judgments of homophobic harassment of male victims, but not female victims (χ2 (1) = 4.78, p = .03). As more schools invest resources in anti-harassment initiatives, our findings suggest that discussion of gender and gender stereotypes is essential.