Recent legal, social, and policy shifts in support of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people are causing educators and education researchers to address LGBTQ issues with a sense of legitimacy and urgency. In recent years, AERA’s journals have examined many aspects of LGBTQ+ education.
The following compendium of open-access articles includes AERA journal content on LGBTQ issues published since 1999. This page will be updated as new articles are published.
Note: Articles are listed below in reverse chronological order of publication.
Methodology as Pedagogy: Trans Lives, Social Science, and the Possibilities of Education Research Harper B. Keenan Educational Researcher, July 2022 This article asks the question, how can education researchers design methodologies that avoid reinforcing the structures and epistemologies that have done harm to trans people?
Sex, Gender, and Education Research: The Case for Transgender Studies in Education Elizabeth J. Meyer Educational Researcher, July 2022 This article argues that by drawing from transgender studies and epistemologies, education researchers can move toward more liberatory scholarship and educational practices.
Black Queer Students’ Counter-Stories of Invisibility in Undergraduate STEM as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space Luis A. Leyva, R. Taylor McNeill, B R. Balmer, Brittany L. Marshall, V. Elizabeth King, Zander D. Alley American Educational Research Journal, May 2022. Researchers found that curricular erasure and within-group peer tensions shaped variation in undergraduate Black queer students’ STEM experiences of invisibility.
“A Place for Everybody”: Students’ Perspectives on Inclusive Behavior in School Gary N. Siperstein, Staci C. Ballard, Holly E. Jacobs, Jason Rodriquez, Timothy P. Shriver Educational Researcher, May 2022. This study explored how students give meaning to inclusive behavior at school and the conditions that support inclusive behavior.
Equity and Social Justice in Research Practice Partnerships in the United States Amy Vetter, Beverly S. Faircloth, Kimberly K. Hewitt, Laura M. Gonzalez, Ye He, Marcia L. Rock Review of Educational Research, January 2022. This literature review examined how RPPs in the United States have addressed equity and justice in their work.
Race Without Gender? Trends and Limitations in the Higher Education Scholarship Regarding Men of Color Nolan L. Cabrera, Alex K. Karaman, Tracy Arámbula Ballysingh, Yadira G. Oregon, Eliaquin A. Gonell, Jameson D. Lopez, Regina Deil-Amen Review of Educational Research, November 2021. Researchers reviewed 153 pieces of scholarship from 1999 to 2019 using an intersectional and critical content analysis approach to understand trends in how research on the underrepresentation and underperformance of men of color relative to women of color within institutions of higher education has been conducted.
Toward Gender-Inclusive Postsecondary Data Collection Karly S. Ford, Kelly O. Rosinger, Junghee Choi, Gabriel Pulido Educational Researcher, March 2021. This brief examined how many postsecondary datasets collect gender data in ways that are not inclusive of trans students.
Who Engages in Gender Bullying? The Role of Homophobic Name-Calling, Gender Pressure, and Gender Conformity Salvatore Ioverno, Dawn DeLay, Carol Lynn Martin, Laura D. Hanish Educational Researcher, October 2020. This study examined whether bullies’ gender conformity, pressure to conform to gender norms, and experiences of homophobic name-calling are associated with a tendency to bully gender conforming victims and gender non-conforming victims.
Pronouns and Preferred Names: When Public School Teachers’ Religious Beliefs Conflict With School Directives Suzanne E. Eckes Educational Researcher, July 2020. This study examined a 2020 lawsuit that involves a public school teacher who refused to address transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns in class because of his religious beliefs.
Large-Scale Estimates of LGBQ-Heterosexual Disparities in the Presence of Potentially Mischievous Responders: A Preregistered Replication and Comparison of Methods Joseph R. Cimpian, Jennifer D. Timmer AERA Open, November 2019. Researchers found that potentially mischievous responders inflate LGBQ-heterosexual disparities, do so more among boys than girls, and affect academic, disciplinary, psychological, and health outcomes differentially.
“Put the Jesuit Out Front”: How a Catholic, Jesuit University Addresses LGBQ Issues Bryce E. Hughes American Educational Research Journal, September 2019. Researchers found that faculty, staff, and students at a Jesuit, Catholic university employed a variety of tactics adapted for the Catholic higher education context.
“A Different Kind of Activism”: The University of Florida Committee on Sexism and Homophobia, 1981–1992 Brittney L. Beck American Educational Research Journal, January 2019. The findings of the study illuminated the quieter role faculty and staff in higher education played in sustaining the civil rights and human dignities of queer people at UF during a time when students’ activism had lost momentum.
Intersectionality, Race-Gender Subordination, and Education Angela Harris, Zeus Leonardo Review of Research in Education, April 2018. This study unpacks intersectionality as an analytical framework.
Classification Errors and Bias Regarding Research on Sexual Minority Youths Joseph R. Cimpian Educational Researcher, December 2017. This study illustrates how researchers can detect and correct classification errors of sexual minority youths and it discusses how piecewise attempts to address bias can sometimes unintentionally exacerbate other forms of bias.
Sexual Orientation and School Discipline: New Evidence From a Population-Based Sample Joel Mittleman Educational Researcher, January 2018. The study author found that sexual minorities continue to face high rates of discipline than their peers.
Gay-Straight Alliances as Settings for Youth Inclusion and Development: Future Conceptual and Methodological Directions for Research on These and Other Student Groups in Schools V. Paul Poteat, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Jerel P. Calzo, Stephen T. Russell, Stacey Horn Educational Researcher, December 2017. This special issue of Educational Researcher focuses on pressing issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, student-led roups known as Gay-Straight Alliances, classification bias, and intersectionality.
Editors' Introduction: Introducing a Methodological Research Collection on Pressing Issues for LGBTQ Students Joseph R. Cimpian, Carolyn D. Herrington Educational Researcher, December 2017. This special issue of Educational Researcher focuses on pressing issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, student-led roups known as Gay-Straight Alliances, classification bias, and intersectionality.
A Ratchet Lens: Black Queer Youth, Agency, Hip Hop, and the Black Ratchet Imagination Bettina L. Love Educational Researcher, December 2017. This study expolores the utilization of the theory of a Black ratchet imagination as a methodological perspective to examine the multiple intersectiosn of Black and queer identity constructions within the space of hip hop.
Queer and Trans Youth, Relational Subjectivity, and Uncertain Possibilities: Challenging Research in Complicated Contexts Cris Mayo Educational Researcher, December 2017. Study author addresses complication to how different disciplines define, study, and theorize sexuality, gender, gender identity, and other intersecting categories of subjectivity, like age, race, class, ethnicity, and so on.
Coming Out and Leaving Home: A Policy and Research Agenda for LGBT Homeless Students William G. Tierney, James Dean Ward Educational Researcher, December 2017. Study authors examine the literature on LGBT and homeless students and explore the intersection of these communities.
Greater Engagement Among Members of Gat-Straight Alliances: Individual and Structural Contributors V. Paul Poteat, Nicholas C. Heck, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Jerel P. Calzo American Educational Research Journal, October 2013. Study authors identified individual and structural predictors of greater engagement in Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) settings with a cross-sectional sample of 295 youth in 33 GSAs from the 2014 Massachusetts GSA Network Survey.
Critical Pedagogy Enactedin the Gay-Straight Alliance: New Possibilities for a Third Space in Teacher Development J.B. Mayo, Jr. Educational Researcher, June 2013. The author concludes that pedagogical practices play a key role in creaing a long-term Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), where engaged student learning combined with activism promote a "third space" in teacher development.
Bullying Explains Only Part of LGBTQ-Heterosexual Risk Disparities: Implications for Policy and Practice Joseph P. Robinson, Dorothy L. Espelage Educational Researcher, November 2012. The extent to which LGBTQ youths’ higher rates of victimization can explain these youths’ greater rates of suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and unexcused absences from school is explored in this article, with the authors finding that policies aimed at simply reducing bullying may not be effective.
GLBT Teachers: The Evolving Legal Protections Suzanne E. Eckes, Martha M. McCarthy American Educational Research Journal, May 2008. This article analyzes all litigation pertaining to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) public school educators and antidiscrimination statutory provisions in all 50 states to contribute to an understanding of the role that legal requirements play in protecting GLBT public employees.
Chapter 3 Queering Foundations: Queer and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Educational Research Cris Mayo Review of Research in Education, March 2007. This chapter will first briefly examine general trends and shifts in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and queer educational research in the past two decades, then will turn to a discussion of the place of coming out in LGBT and queer research in educational foundations.
(Homo)sexualities, Organizations, and Administration: Possibilities for In(queer)y Colleen Capper Educational Researcher, June 1999. This paper considers the possibilities for research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender school administrators and for the broader study of queerness in schools as organizations.
Read open-access articles from the Educational Researcher Special Issue: Trans Studies in K-12 Education.
Brief 3: Bullying and Peer Victimization Among Vulnerable Populations Research on bullying dynamics shows that bullying is often aimed at specific groups. Findings from three groups have become prominent in the research literature: children with disabilities, African American youth, and LGBTQ youth. Prevention of Bullying in Schools, Colleges and Universities, 2013
In 2015, AERA held a Capitol Hill briefing focused on areas addressed in the AERA report, LGBTQ Issues in Education: Advancing a Research Agenda. Click here for briefing webcast, presentation slides, fact sheets, and more information on the AERA report.