Lives of LGBTQ Students Annotated Bibliography

Introduction

One of the implications for action which could enhance the lives of LGBTQ students includes the need for training educators and administrators to work effectively with LGBTQ. The school administrators require examining their current policies regarding bullying with the aim of determining whether they provide enough protection to LGBTQ students at their schools. It is the right of LGBT students to feel supported and safe at their schools. There is a rising need for educators to understand their students' diversity to educate and protect them. In many high schools, there have been several cases that involve bullying although the schools seem to have already established bullying policies. The teachers and the school administrators require being more proactive when they have obtained appropriate training in knowing how they are supposed to work with the LGBTQ students.

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Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the school administrators to offer support to LGBTQ students to prevent them from harming themselves. This would result in having the LGBTQ students feeling more normalized and accepted. This paper will be investigating high school administrator and educator training to engage and support LGBTQ youths by analyzing the qualitative studies conducted by three articles.

Fetner, T., & Elafros, A. (2015). The GSA difference: LGBTQ and ally experiences in high schools with and without gay-straight alliances

In this article, the research problem of inquiry is the implication of lack of gay-straight alliances in high schools. The presence of the gay-straight alliances in schools is believed to have the ability to provide a safe environment for the LGBTQ students as well as their allies (Dragowski, McCabe, & Rubinson, 2016). Others argue that the presence of gay-straight alliances usually extend beyond the LGBTQ students which lasts even after the students have finished their high school education (Fetner & Elafros, 2015). However, despite the numerous benefits that gay-straight alliances have, several administrators and educators disapprove the need of inclusion of these allies.

The intent of the research conducted in this article is considering the perspectives by students who are in schools with and without the gay-straight alliances as LGBTQ allies and students. This is because of the finding that all students across all types of high schools despite the presence of gay-straight alliances have dealt with anti-gay and hostile attitudes among the teachers, administrators, and students.

The research question of the article is: what are the lived experiences of the students who attend schools that include gay-straight alliances are?

The specific qualitative design used is a qualitative comparative analysis of the experiences by students to bring a human face to the enhanced quality of life which the schools that have gay-straight alliances bring to the youths.

The sample used was made up of 53 youths who had recently completed their high school education.

The ethical treatment of the human subjects was ensured through designing of a recruitment approach which was much inclusive to the participants who were both difficult and closest to reach.

In collecting data, there was sorting out of the participants who were involved in the LGBTQ activism in their high schools without selecting a specific sexual identity. 53 interviews were completed in total.

Qualitative data were analyzed systematically. First, the interview scripts were organized according to if the students had attended school with the gay-straight alliance. To establish a comparative analytic framework, there was the use of the inductive analytic approach.

The researcher bias was reduced through selecting only young adults as the research major target group instead of the high school-age teenagers as most of the high school-aged students would have to acquire permission from their parents to participate. The objectivity and trustworthiness in the results were reinforced within the framework of the qualitative research through having the presence of a supportive administrator and teacher as being among the participants.

The researchers were able to ensure trustworthiness of data obtained by identifying three major themes of the interview: harassment experiences, the experiences of support by the authority figures and the friendship patterns.

One of the strengths of the qualitative research is that it provides the much-required information which would contribute to the increasing literature body regarding the presence of gay-straight alliances in high schools. One weakness of the qualitative research is that it failed to acknowledge the fact that not all of the gay-straight alliances are the same.

Fernkopf, D. C. (2017). LGBTQ Perceptions of High School Bullying. Baker University.

The research problem of inquiry is the need of changing policies such that they can provide more protection to the LGBT students from bullying.

The purpose of the qualitative study is to assess the perceptions by former LGBTQ students about what they experienced in school while being bullied.

The research questions which guided the study are: what are the perceptions by former LGBTQ students and experiences concerning bullying when attending school? And what are the impressions by former LGBTQ students and skills with the district policies connected to LGBTQ students' protection from bullying?

The participants of the qualitative research were aged between 18-24 years who were former LGBTQ students.

Ethical treatment of the human subjects was assured by using purposive sampling during the selection of the participants.

The analysis of the obtained data was done by examining the transcripts and recordings of the interview thoroughly to identify any difference.

Researcher bias was reduced by making sure that all participants who were selected were based on the fact that they belonged to the LGBTQ community. Objectivity and trustworthiness in the results were reinforced by making sure that the results of the study were limited to only the individuals who responded to be interviewed deliberately.

Trustworthiness of the data gathered was assured by having every interview conducted being transcribed after the interviewing of the participant.

One strength of the study is that it provides reasons for the need of action to be taken in places where bullying is occurring in high schools which affects LGBTQ students. One of the weaknesses of the qualitative study conducted is that the results were only limited to those individuals who voluntarily responded to the request of being interviewed. According to Fernkopf, (2017), some of the participants could have not correctly remembered how their former schools used to treat LGBTQ students.

Kolbert, J. B., Crothers, L. M., Bundick, M. J., Wells, D. S., Buzgon, J., Berbary, C., ... & Senko, K. (2015). Teachers' perceptions of bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students in a Southwestern Pennsylvania sample

The research problem of inquiry is widespread of bullying among the students in high schools who are identified as LGBTQ. The LGBTQ students seem to stand at an increased risk for facing victimization by peer bullying.

The purpose of the qualitative research is to ascertain the perceptions by care providers regarding bullying of the LGBTQ students. According to Aragon, Poteat, Espelage, & Koenig, (2014), there exists a significant relationship between the perceptions of care providers on school staff supportiveness towards the students despite their sexual orientation.

The qualitative research addresses to main research questions: the care providers' perception on the level of support offered to the youths with sexual minority and how the perceived support is connected t the reported degrees of bullying of the LGBTQ students. The other research question is identifying the implication of bullying policies on the teachers' perception of school bullying of the LGBTQ students (Kolbert et al., 2015).

The specific qualitative design utilized was the sampling method. Samples from two hundred educators were obtained from a county located at Pennsylvania in which there was a significant relationship between the perceptions of teachers regarding the school staff supportiveness toward students despite their sexual orientation.

The participants of the qualitative study were high school educators who were employed in 42 distinct school districts in southwestern Pennsylvania County who were contracted through email to participate.

The ethical treatment of the human subjects was assured by first of all having the research team seeking and receiving approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

The method used for collecting data was web-based surveys which obtained responses from teachers through their emails.

The qualitative data analysis method used was conducting a meta-analysis of survey respondents that were web-designed.

To reduce bias, the researchers used a large sample of participants. Objectivity and trustworthiness in the results were reinforced within the qualitative research framework are reinforced by having a link which the teachers were able to click to contribute to the survey.

Trustworthiness of the data gathered by making the teachers not report the school districts where they were employed hence there were no different comparisons between the assembled population and sample which could be made.

One of the significant strength of the qualitative research is that it contributes to the understanding of the variables which relate to the responses by teachers concerning bullying of LGBTQ students. A weakness of the study is that it did not examine the perceptions of students regarding the teachers' responses and reactions to the development of the bullying policies.

References

Aragon, S. R., Poteat, V. P., Espelage, D. L., & Koenig, B. W. (2014). The influence of peer victimization on educational outcomes for LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ high school students. Journal of LGBT Youth, 11(1), 1-19.

Dragowski, E. A., McCabe, P. C., & Rubinson, F. (2016). EDUCATORS'REPORTS ON INCIDENCE OF HARASSMENT AND ADVOCACY TOWARD LGBTQ STUDENTS. Psychology in the Schools, 53(2), 127-142.

Fernkopf, D. C. (2017). LGBTQ Perceptions of High School Bullying. Baker University.

Fetner, T., & Elafros, A. (2015). The GSA difference: LGBTQ and ally experiences in high schools with and without gay-straight alliances. Social Sciences, 4(3), 563-581.

Kolbert, J. B., Crothers, L. M., Bundick, M. J., Wells, D. S., Buzgon, J., Berbary, C., ... & Senko, K. (2015). Teachers' perceptions of bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students in a Southwestern Pennsylvania sample. Behavioral Sciences, 5(2), 247-263.