Paper Example on LGBT Youth: Graduate Education, Professional Development, and School Counselor Support

Part 1

This paper examines the implication of graduate education training and professional development of school counselors' roles and efforts in supporting LGBT youth. School administrators and counselors have progressively recognized that LGBT youth are a vulnerable population in the school context, and many have implemented policies aimed at ensuring that the safety of all students is guaranteed and that they are accepted without discrimination within the school environment. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses study methodology, the results demonstrated that the more exposed to LGBT-related graduate education and professional development predicted, the more likely the school counselors engagement engaged in LGBT youth counseling practices. From the results of OLS regression-based path analysis, the study further observed that education training on student counselors provided a direct and positive in addressing LGBT-related youth challenges in the school environment. The research established that training of school counselors was critical in enabling students to have access to information on LGBT issues to create awareness and possibly prohibit outdated and stigmatizing perceptions that discourage LGBT issues in schools and enact frameworks that protect students and staff from bullying and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Education training provides school counselors with the necessary knowledge and skills to help LGBT youth, and play mediating roles by ensuring the school policies, curricula and resources explicitly include LGBT people, and that the school environment takes into account the specific needs of LGBT youth.

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Abreu, R. L., Black, W. W., Mosley, D. V., & Fedewa, A. L. (2016). LGBTQ youth bullying experiences in schools: The role of school counselors within a system of oppression. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 11(3-4), 325-342.

In the framework of an investigation that aims to study the homophobia situation in schools, this paper has tried to give importance to the invisibility of the violence exerted on the LGBT youth by acknowledging the lack of regulatory frameworks for implementing school-wide LGBTQ-specific antibullying interventions. The study indicated the significance of robust regulatory frameworks that ensure that counselors, teachers, and administrators work to give relevance to existing policies, implementing protections and intervening when cases of bullying or discrimination occur. At the same time, the paper establishes LGBTQ antibullying interventions by equipping counselors with the necessary training to intervene in schools by conducting education workshops designed to prevent and reduce acts of verbal/physical/psychological violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The proposed antibullying interventions are aimed at high school students and educational institutions interested in promoting, on their territory, interventions to reduce prejudice and to improve the respect for people in their diversity, according to the following objectives: Providing participants with tools and methods for use with their classmates and in the group of students (peer education); providing young people with cognitive content and interpretative methods of homosexuality as a social phenomenon; recognizing, deconstructing and overcoming stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination against others; preventing adolescent discomfort by promoting harmonious personality development in people with problems related to sexual orientation; contributing to the improvement of dialogue and relational well-being in school life by supporting the integration of male and female students into the peer group, in an inclusive and welcoming environment as much as possible. The ethical obligations among counselors allow these professionals to evaluate and reflect on their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards supporting LGBT youth.

Swanson, K., & Gettinger, M. (2016). Teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and supportive behaviors toward LGBT students: Relationship to Gay-Straight Alliances, antibullying policy, and teacher training. Journal of LGBT youth, 13(4), 326-351.

This paper focuses its study on the link between 3 school-level supports for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward LGBT youth. From a social theory perspective, the paper makes visible a problem that occurs every day in the school environment by listening to the voice of their protagonists: students, teachers, and, to the extent possible, those adolescents who are harassed because of their sexual orientation. Social support theory tries to put a face to social problems, focusing on how such structural issues affect and are lived by individuals. In this case, the problem at hand is that of violence exerted in the classrooms and, specifically, the violence derived from the discrimination suffered by people who break the established gender and sexual identity rules. Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender people have received aggressive bias, which necessitates bringing the reality of this group closer to adolescents, as well as to try to minimize as far as possible, reactions, and consequences that homophobia produces on them. By using a survey methodology that included a sample of 98 teachers, the investigation provided a deeper understanding of the levels of support available in Grades 6-12. The results emphasized the need for teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward LGBT youth, regardless of the level of experience in leading groups or counseling activities in schools.

Singh, A. A., & Kosciw, J. G. (2017). Introduction to the Special Issue: School Counselors Transforming Schools for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Students. Professional School Counseling, 20(1a), 1096-2409.

This paper is a special issue of Professional School Counseling on "School Counselors Transforming Schools for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Students" that provides six empirical studies that practicing school counselors and educators can apply as a way of informing their training and refining their interventions about supporting LGBTQ students and transforming the school environment from a discriminatory one to one that is supportive and inclusive for LGBTQ students. At the individual level, the studies propose an alliance between students and counselors. An essential principle for those who work in counseling with gay, lesbian, or bisexual adolescents is the need to be aware of their prejudices and negative attitudes towards non-normative sexuality. This awareness should be present both in direct contact with consultants since these prejudices and attitudes can interfere in the dynamism of the dyad and in the critical evaluation of the theoretical models and research used to found counseling practices because these models may contain a bias towards this population. Practitioners should not only silence their prejudices about respecting gay, lesbian, or bisexual consultants, but they should also be able to adopt positive models of psychotherapy or counseling through a transformative approach.

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.

This paper pays attention to prejudices, harassment and negative attitudes which presupposes the need for educators to carefully examine the language used in the meeting with LGBTQ students, including monitoring the incidences of LGBTQ harassment in schools particularly in the way in which they speak, in everyday life, of the homosexuality in the social and school context. Using a national survey that investigated 968 educators, the paper notes that it is through the words used that hostility in social situations is expressed, which can prevent a positive construction in the case of homosexuality and advocacy for inclusivity and tolerance. In the context of advocacy towards LGBTQ students, counselors should also be sensitive to the level of development of the young people they are dealing with: in working with adolescents, exploration and questions relating to sexuality are frequent, and they should, therefore, create a space for freedom of expression of all the modalities of desire and sexuality. The paper also emphasizes that it is necessary to linguistically deconstruct negative gender stereotypes that could interfere with questions of sexual orientation to avoid the development of an early self-conception as a homosexual, which can inhibit the necessary process of exploration for the construction of gender identity.

Ken, J. (2017). Supporting LGBTQ students in high school for the college transition: The role of school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 20(1a), 1096-2409.

This paper examines the role of high school counselors in deconstructing the challenges facing this young population as they transition to higher education learning. In the case of adolescents who are already in the awareness phase of their homosexuality, and because of the suffering and confusion this awareness generates, the paper provides that counselors should provide unconditional support by encouraging identity development and avoiding adverse reactions. They should also be sensitive to crises linked to the consultant's impossibility of revealing their homosexuality and be able to assess the risk of suicide, dropping out of school, verbal or physical harassment inside or outside school. They must also anticipate possible reactions from family or peers to help the student know how, when, and to whom they could reveal their homosexuality, by weighing the pros and cons of such a decision. In a hostile context like the school environment, the ethical imperative of counselors is unconditional support and positive and healthy conception of sexuality: they should help lesbians, gays, and bisexuals to face problems such as coming out and developing a positive identity for themselves. They should also help them maintain this positive identity in a world that is still far from accepting them as equal citizens.

Part 2: Justification for the Topic

The difficulties faced by teenagers in the search for the affirmation of their sexual identity is an issue that has gained global interest. The challenges facing LGBTQ youth expose the vulnerability of homo-affective adolescents, pointing out that the school and the State are not prepared to work on sexual identity. The school homogenizes its students, pretends that it does not perceive difficulties, and serves its audience without observing the differences. This homoaffective issue needs to be worked on in educational institutions, especially in the early teens, which is when the sexual definition usually begins.

Guidance counselors who work in schools receive training in helping students address various intervention issues. Young people in high school can experience significant physical and psychological transitions that will mark their development and their future. According to Singh and Kosciw (2017), the role of guidance counselors consists, among other things, in developing strategies allowing them to integrate socially and professionally. Rethinking the role of the school and the teacher on homosexuality and the content covered is a challenge that must be...