LGB YOUTH IN AMERICA’S SCHOOLS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A CHANGING CONTEXT

Abstract

Lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) youth have been historically invisible in research on educational stratification. At a time of rapid change in the social and legal status of America’s LGB population, this dissertation draws on five large, population-based datasets to analyze the academic and psychosocial outcomes of LGB youth. The dissertation is constituted by three substantive chapters. The first chapter analyzes the suspension/expulsion rates of LGB teens, finding that LGB girls—but not boys—face higher rates of discipline than their straight peers. This core finding is replicated across three datasets. The second chapter provides the first prospective, population-based evidence on the early childhood onset of LGB youth’s psychosocial vulnerabilities. Across two datasets, this chapter demonstrates that LGB youth’s elevated rates of peer victimization emerge early in childhood, but observable disparities in depression/anxiety do not appear until adolescence. The third chapter provides replicated, nationally representative evidence on the academic achievement and attainment of America’s LGB population. Drawing on two large studies of American adults, I show that—across birth cohorts throughout the 20th century—gay men have substantially surpassed straight men in rates of BA attainment. Lesbian and bisexual attainment patterns vary by birth cohort, with an early advantage giving way to a contemporary disadvantage. These patterns are replicated and extended across a variety of academic outcomes in a contemporary longitudinal cohort of high school students. Taken together, the three dissertation chapters empirically and theoretically integrate LGB into the sociological literature on educational stratification.