Gender, Sex, and Sexuality among Contemporary Youth

Generation Sex

Patricia Neff Claster, Sampson Lee Blair, Patricia Neff Claster, Sampson Lee Blair

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781787146143
• eBook ISBN: 9781787149953
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Researchers, practitioners, and parents have increasingly become concerned about issues related to sex, gender, and sexuality among children and adolescents. With access to the Internet, young people around the globe can readily obtain virtually any and all information they seek concerning sex and sexuality. In many cultures, the clothing and fashions of children, adolescents, and young adults are increasingly merging, leaving little clear distinction between them, and creating what some consider to be the 'sexualization' of children's and adolescents' clothing. Coinciding with such changes, young people are more openly expressing their own gender identity, often leading to considerable social debate about feminine and masculine identities, and also transgender identities. 

This collection provides unique insight into identity formation for contemporary youth and examines the evolving norms concerning sex, gender, and sexuality in the lives of children and adolescents addressing topics including the development of gender identity, sexual behavior among youth, LGBT youth, transgender youth, parental and peer influences upon the development of gender and gender identity and dating violence.

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION IN ADOLESCENT AND YOUNG ADULT MALES

Mollie T. McQuillan

ABSTRACT

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to examine the robustness of the findings on educational advantage among sexual minority men.

Methodology/approach – Using nationally representative data (AddHealth) and controlling for other predictors of academic attainment, we examine the educational attainment of sexual minority males by using hierarchical regression and logistical regression for two measures of sexual identity.

Findings – We find robust differences in educational attainment across analyses and sexual orientation constructs. Our results show sexual minority identity predicts up to a year more of education for male respondents and consistently reporting male homosexuals have an even greater advantage, more than one and a half years, compared to inconsistent responders.

Originality/value – Our results extend previous research on educational outcomes for nonheterosexual adolescents, suggesting there are sustained differences in long-term educational outcomes for nonheterosexual adults and supporting earlier analyses of the AddHealth survey data. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining educational attainment as measured by continuous years and cut-points, using two measures of sexual orientation, providing estimates for all Wave 4 sexual minority identities (i.e., not collapsing any sexual minority category), and controlling for adolescent school geography and type. Moreover, we find early identification of sexual orientation and stability of sexual orientation may be an important source of variation in identifying LGBTQ adolescents who are at greater academic risk or who may benefit from increased social support.

Keywords: Sexual orientation; educational attainment; identity stability; sexual minority

While many cross-sectional studies of youth have suggested sexual minority students are at risk for poor academic outcomes, a few longitudinal studies exploring variation in educational attainment by sexual identity indicated sexual minorities males might actually have an educational advantage (Fine, 2015; Mollborn & Everett, 2015). This is an important advantage to understand because higher educational achievement predicts a number of beneficial outcomes across the lifespan, including higher lifetime earnings, better physical health, and less mental health (Adler & Snibbe, 2003; Day, 2002; Fine, 2015; Mollborn & Everett, 2015). Early research on sexual orientation and educational attainment used same-sex unmarried partners living in the same household as a proxy for sexual minority status in the 1990 and 2000 Censuses (Black, Sanders, & Taylor, 2007). These studies suggested same-sex partners had higher levels of education compared to other individuals. This educational advantage for sexual minorities has been replicated with data from the General Social Survey, National Survey of College Graduates, 2013 LGBT Survey, and National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Black et al., 2007; Mollborn & Everett, 2015; Pew Research Center, 2013; Turner, 2005).

More recently, a more complex picture of educational attainment among sexual minorities has emerged. Early and stable sexual minority identification has predicted persistent mental health problems and academic disadvantages compared to later or inconsistent sexual minority identification (Birkett, Newcomb, & Mustanski, 2014; Jager & Davis-Kean, 2011; Robinson & Espelage, 2012; Ueno, Roach, & Peña-Talamantes, 2013). For example, Birkett, Russell, and Corliss (2014) showed academic risk factors such as depression and victimization, while decreasing over time, still persisted into adolescence, especially for early sexual minority identifiers. The timing of when young people identify same-sex attraction or nonheterosexual identities may influence how early social climates influence academic outcomes.

The type of sexual minority identity and gender also plays a vital role in educational attainment. The Pew Research Center’s nationally representative 2013 survey of LGBT Americans illustrated these differences. For instance, bisexual men were almost half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree compared to gay men (23% vs. 40%). Similarly, analyses of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), another nationally representative study, showed even greater differences in educational attainment by gender. Researchers found sexual minority women had the lowest educational attainment of all groups while sexual minority men had the highest educational attainment (Fine, 2015; Mollborn & Everett, 2015). These differences in educational attainment and gender highlighted why collapsing all sexual minorities into one category for analyses, while necessary to gain statistical power at times, may also be methodologically problematic in education studies.

Low educational attainment for sexual minority women fits what we may expect for sexual minority educational attainment, given the higher rates of poor mental health, risky behaviors, victimization, and adolescent academic standing reported by many sexual minorities (Bontempo & D’Augelli, 2002; Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer, & Boesen, 2014; Russell, Seif, & Truong, 2001). As seen in the differing educational trajectories of sexual minority men and women, it is likely different developmental, cultural, and social mechanisms are at play for sexual minority women compared to men (Hammack & Cohler, 2011). For example, women were reportedly more resistant to labeling their sexual identity, to be more fluid in their sexual identity, to receive different levels of social support, and to experience different forms of social stressors compared to sexual minority men (Diamond, 2008; Marshal, Friedman, Stall, & Thompson, 2009; Mustanski et al., 2014; Savin-Williams, Joyner, & Rieger, 2012). Moreover, some sexual minority researchers have provided evidence indicating greater measurement error among adolescent boys in sexual identity questions, jokingly reporting homosexual attraction (Robinson-Cimpian, 2014; Savin-Williams & Joyner, 2014). Probing how and why educational achievement varies by sexual identity and developmental timing may provide valuable insight into protective characteristics linked to higher education for some sexual minority males despite adolescent social and developmental challenges.

This paper sought to examine the robustness of the findings on educational advantage among sexual minority men. Failure to replicate important findings in the field of sexual minority education and health points to the importance of replicating and testing the robustness of earlier findings (Austin, Harper, Kaufman, & Hamra, 2016; Regnerus, 2016). Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), we compared educational attainment by sexual identity using several statistical methods, two categorizations of sexual identity, and two measures of education. First, we examined educational attainment by the five sexual identity choices for participants at Wave 4 and by the consistency of same-sex/opposite-sex attraction with sexual identification of participants across Waves 1–4. Using a consistency measure of sexual identity served two purposes: (1) it allowed for an examination of participants who identified same-sex attraction/identity early in life, and (2) it addressed possible measurement bias for sexual minority males in the Adolescent Health data that has been reported by some researchers. Savin-Williams and Joyner (2014), among others, suggested jokester adolescent boys may have contributed to measurement error in assessments of risk for adolescent sexual minority males. In the results section, we reported the descriptive comparison of both sexual identity categories and educational attainment. Next, we included other predictors of educational attainment to assess if the relationship between educational attainment and sexual orientation is robust, or if it was attenuated once controls are added to the analysis. These analyses built on the earlier findings of educational differences by sexual identity by examining geographical differences in early school environment as a predictor of educational attainment. We discussed this study’s results in the context of existing results, including the contribution of analyzing consistent responders who identify same-sex attraction as adolescents and identify as homosexual in adulthood.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Sexual Minorities: A Population At Risk

Several studies indicate sexual minority adolescents are at greater risk for poor academic outcomes in stressful educational environments. For instance, using the AddHealth data from Wave 1, Pearson, Muller, and Wilkinson (2007) showed same-sex attracted adolescent males were more likely to have lower grade point averages (GPAs) and fail courses compared to opposite-sex attracted males. Same-sex attracted males were also less likely to take advanced courses in math and science at the same rate as opposite-sex attracted males. Researchers theorized these academic outcomes were related to greater rates of victimization and related to mental health issues compared to heterosexual students. Indeed, many sexual minority students have reported hostile school environments compared to their heterosexual peers. Sexual minority students were targets for verbal harassment, marginalization, exclusion, and even physical violence in American high schools and on college campuses (Andersen & Blosnich, 2013; Aragon, Poteat, Espelage, & Koenig, 2014; Russell et al., 2001; Ueno, 2005). In a meta-analysis of 162 studies spanning 17 years of research, Katz-Wise and Hyde (2012) showed sexual minority participants consistently reported greater victimization when compared to heterosexual participants.

Victimization among sexual minority adolescents were also associated with other problems such as higher rates of suicidality, depression, truancy, and lower GPAs (Birkett et al., 2014; Bontempo & D’Augelli, 2002; Goldbach, Tanner-Smith, Bagwell, & Dunlap, 2014). In one study, sexual minority high-school students reporting greater victimization based on their sexual orientation were three times more likely to report staying home from school because they felt unsafe at school. They also had lower GPAs and were twice as likely to say they didn't expect to pursue post-baccalaureate education (Kosciw et al., 2014). Yet, victimization did not explain all of the academic differences between sexual minority youth and their heterosexual counterparts (Aragon et al., 2014; Robinson & Espelage, 2012). Moreover, grouping all sexual minority young people into one category obscures differences in mental health, school experiences, and educational outcomes in high school for a diverse identity group.

Variation among Sexual Minorities

Grouping all sexual minority youth together is problematic for a number of reasons. The kind of sexual orientation or identity, fluidity between identification at different times in one’s life, gender identity, and gender expression may all influence academic outcomes. For instance, students questioning their sexual orientation were more likely to report greater victimization, suicide attempts, depression, and drug use in several studies (Birkett, Espelage, & Koenig, 2009; Hatzenbuehler, McLaughlin, Keyes, & Hasin, 2010; Kim, 2009; Kosciw et al., 2014). Similarly, Marshal et al. (2009) found bisexuals were 500% more likely to report suicidality compared to heterosexuals, while other sexual minority youth were 170% more likely compared to heterosexuals. Sexual minority identities differ in how likely they are to develop mental health problems and it is thus plausible that they differ when it comes to academic problems as well.

In a study of Wisconsin middle- and high-school students, Robinson and Espelage (2012) found that, while a number of LGBT students report behavior associated with poor academic outcomes (e.g., more victimization, skipping school, and suicide ideation), the majority of LGBT students in their study did not. Bisexual, transgender, and questioning students accounted for the statistically different results between sexual minority students and heterosexual students. In related studies, bisexual and questioning adolescents had higher rates of truancy, poor grades, and victimization (Birkett et al., 2014; Espelage, Aragon, Birkett, & Koenig, 2008). Similarly, when participants have the option to identify as “mostly heterosexual,” such as in AddHealth, these respondents reported greater mental health problems, risky behavior, and victimization than heterosexuals (Vrangalova & Savin-Williams, 2014). Although mostly heterosexuals did not experience rates as high as bisexuals, the prevalence of mental health problems, risky behavior, and victimization were similar to homosexual and mostly homosexual respondents. These studies support examining educational attainment across multiple categories rather than lumping all sexual minorities into one category.

Likewise, gender is a significant determinate of educational attainment in both heterosexual and sexual minority populations. Several studies using the AddHealth survey data reported variation in educational attainment by gender and sexual identity, same-sex attraction, and same-sex sexual behavior (Fine, 2015; Mollborn & Everett...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• “Dare to be Different”: How Religious Groups Frame and Enact Appropriate Sexuality and Gender Norms among Young Adults
• Estimating the Status and Needs of Homeless LGBT Adolescents: Advocacy, Identity, and the Dialectics of Support
• The Intersex Kids Are All Right? Diagnosis Disclosure and the Experiences of Intersex Youth
• Examining the Family Transition: How Parents of Gender-Diverse Youth Develop Trans-Affirming Attitudes
• Let’s Talk about Sex for Money: An Exploration of Economically Motivated Relationships among Young, Black Women in Canada
• Educational Attainment and Sexual Orientation in Adolescent and Young Adult Males
• “To Feel Him Love Me”: Emerging Intersections of Identity, Queerness, and Differing Ability
• Sexual Debut Education: Cultivating a Healthy Approach to Young People’s Sexual Experiences
• Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Teen Dating Violence Victims’ Responses to Partner Suicidal Ideation
• Two by Two: Heteronormativity and the Noah Story for Children
• About the Editors
• Index