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Gender and Sexual Minority Students’ Engagement with School: the Impacts of Grades, Feeling Unsafe, and Gay/Straight Alliances

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Abstract

Compared to the general student population, gender and sexual minority (GSM) students are at increased risk of low academic achievement, poor attendance, and not completing high school with their cohort. One construct that has the potential to identify GSM students at increased risk for negative educational outcomes is school engagement. Based on self-report data from 411 middle and high school GSM students who attended community sexual minority youth support programming, this study utilized statistical stepwise regression to develop a model of behavioral and demographic variables that predicted a sexual minority student’s engagement with school. Confirmatory hierarchical regression found that school grades, feeling unsafe, and presence of a school-based Gay/Straight Alliance support group accounted for 31% of the variance seen in student school engagement scores. Recommendations for supporting the engagement of GSM students and future research are given.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child, Family, and School Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, 80208, USA

    Cynthia E. Hazel & Lacey Pomerantz

  2. Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    N. Eugene Walls

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  1. Cynthia E. Hazel
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  2. N. Eugene Walls
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Correspondence to Cynthia E. Hazel.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Hazel, C.E., Walls, N.E. & Pomerantz, L. Gender and Sexual Minority Students’ Engagement with School: the Impacts of Grades, Feeling Unsafe, and Gay/Straight Alliances. Contemp School Psychol 23, 432–443 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0199-5

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