This article describes a study that investigated preservice teachers' understandings and self-efficacy related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) students and families. The preservice teachers indicated a broad range of understandings in relation to LGBTQ terms. They reported a relatively high sense of self-efficacy in…

Research indicates that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) college students face a hostile campus climate. Despite the hostile campus climate, many LGBTQ+ students persist. Understanding what helps students persist is important to student affairs professionals as they develop data-driven interventions to improve…

Much media attention has recently focused on gender expansive students in schools. Whether arguing over bathroom rights or wardrobe freedoms, many educators feel caught in a crossfire between protecting their students and maintaining the status quo of an extremely binary educational system. After reviewing the history of the pathologization of…

Using an ecological model, the individual-, school-, and sociocultural-level characteristics that affect gay-straight alliance (GSA) advisors were examined in the current study. The formation of GSAs has been one way that schools have sought to improve the school climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. Limited information…

The environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, staff, and faculty on college campuses has certainly improved over the last generation, but recent dramatic episodes confirm the continuing need for vigilance and reform. Students remain the constituency most vulnerable to the effects of entrenched bigotry: the harassment…

School psychologists are adult learners. They support children and youth within the K-12 system who are facing academic, emotional, behavioral, or systematic barriers to education. Among the most vulnerable are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, and school psychologists need to learn to be LGBTQ competent. The purpose of…

This study examined what elementary schools in New York State are doing to recognize lesbian gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families in terms of curriculum, policies, and practices. One hundred and sixteen participants were recruited through the New York Association of School Psychologists email listserve and completed a brief online…

The purpose of this critical ethnographic study is to provide an account from within a public school of some of the ways that heterosexist discourses and silences are reproduced and challenged. As a classroom teacher and critical ethnographer, I conducted this research with straight-identified high school students as they came to understand,…

Schools contribute heavily to the feelings of isolation and stigmatization that many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth experience. Research demonstrates that the climate of US middle and high schools are generally unsupportive and unsafe for many of these youth who are often susceptible to harassment, discrimination, and other negative events,…

This article explores the notion of "risk" and the consequences of both "taking risks" or "not taking risks" in doing anti-homophobia (or anti-heterosexist) education within broader anti-bias and social justice agendas in early childhood education. Informed primarily by the author's collaborative research and…