Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on ... more Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on survey results from a sample of 636 youth participants in the ACLU Advocacy Institute, this study finds that although youth generally report greater benefits from their activism than costs, the costs are significantly related to worse mental health, physical health, and flourishing, while benefits are positively associated with flourishing only. A sense of belonging to an activist community, however, emerges as a significant protective factor for mental health, physical health, and flourishing. Focus group respondents explain how peer support and a sense of belonging act as salves to burnout, the most common cost that youth activists in this sample report experiencing. They also identify three main sources of burnout: backlash in response to their efforts; pressure to be the savior generation; and the slow progress of change. This study advances understanding of the complex relationship ...
This report examines the online experiences of LGBT students in 6-12th grade. LGBT youth experien... more This report examines the online experiences of LGBT students in 6-12th grade. LGBT youth experience nearly three times as much bullying and harassment online as non-LGBT youth, but also find greater peer support, access to health information and opportunities to be civically engaged
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers’ rep...
In this introduction to the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on the theme “mak... more In this introduction to the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on the theme “making transgender count,” the authors delineate the senses in which trans people can count. On one hand, one makes trans count (in the sense of having its importance recognized) by counting it (making it visible through quantification). On the other hand, one makes (i.e., compels) trans count by forcing atypical configurations of identity into categories into which they do not quite fit—the proverbial square peg in a round hole. In this way, the imperative to be counted becomes another kind of normativizing violence that trans subjects can encounter and hence another problematic to be critically interrogated by the field of transgender studies. The tensions among what to count, whom to count, how to count, why to count, or whether to count or be counted at all are explored in this issue’s articles. What makes the notion of trans* such a fecund point of departure for work in transgender studies is that the definitional lines of the concept are moving targets. That very instability frustrates the project of fixing embodied identities in time and space—a requisite operation for the potentially life-enhancing project of counting trans populations and better addressing their needs as well as for the necropolitical project of selecting certain members of the population for categorical exclusion as dysgenic. The essays in this issue do not resolve the tension between efforts to refine techniques of governmental reason and strategies of resistance, between attempts to sedentarize trans identities and movements that refuse such settling, or between universalizing imperatives to classify and local demands to reject incorporation into a global schematics of gender difference organized by male/female, man/woman, cis-/trans-, trans-/homo-, or white/color dichotomies. Some attempt to do both, while all ultimately fall on one side or the other of various problematics. Our goal in curating this issue has been less to gather a collection of articles that definitively settle these vexed questions than to stage a conversation in which the stakes of the game are made visible.
This study examines how United States (US) teachers’ experiences and beliefs may be predictive of... more This study examines how United States (US) teachers’ experiences and beliefs may be predictive of their intervention in anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) bullying and harassment using a US national sample of teachers (N = 726) who completed an online survey. Results from regression analysis indicated that knowing LGBT people, awareness of general bullying and harassment, awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment, and self-efficacy related to intervention in homophobic remarks were significant predictors of teachers’ frequency of intervention in homophobic remarks. Teachers’ sense of obligation to ensure safe schools for LGBT youth was not predictive of intervention. Implications for teacher education include: providing opportunities for exposure to LGBT people; raising awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment; and building teachers’ skills to intervene in anti-LGBT behaviors.
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers ’ re...
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers’ rep...
Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on ... more Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on survey results from a sample of 636 youth participants in the ACLU Advocacy Institute, this study finds that although youth generally report greater benefits from their activism than costs, the costs are significantly related to worse mental health, physical health, and flourishing, while benefits are positively associated with flourishing only. A sense of belonging to an activist community, however, emerges as a significant protective factor for mental health, physical health, and flourishing. Focus group respondents explain how peer support and a sense of belonging act as salves to burnout, the most common cost that youth activists in this sample report experiencing. They also identify three main sources of burnout: backlash in response to their efforts; pressure to be the savior generation; and the slow progress of change. This study advances understanding of the complex relationship ...
This report examines the online experiences of LGBT students in 6-12th grade. LGBT youth experien... more This report examines the online experiences of LGBT students in 6-12th grade. LGBT youth experience nearly three times as much bullying and harassment online as non-LGBT youth, but also find greater peer support, access to health information and opportunities to be civically engaged
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers’ rep...
In this introduction to the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on the theme “mak... more In this introduction to the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on the theme “making transgender count,” the authors delineate the senses in which trans people can count. On one hand, one makes trans count (in the sense of having its importance recognized) by counting it (making it visible through quantification). On the other hand, one makes (i.e., compels) trans count by forcing atypical configurations of identity into categories into which they do not quite fit—the proverbial square peg in a round hole. In this way, the imperative to be counted becomes another kind of normativizing violence that trans subjects can encounter and hence another problematic to be critically interrogated by the field of transgender studies. The tensions among what to count, whom to count, how to count, why to count, or whether to count or be counted at all are explored in this issue’s articles. What makes the notion of trans* such a fecund point of departure for work in transgender studies is that the definitional lines of the concept are moving targets. That very instability frustrates the project of fixing embodied identities in time and space—a requisite operation for the potentially life-enhancing project of counting trans populations and better addressing their needs as well as for the necropolitical project of selecting certain members of the population for categorical exclusion as dysgenic. The essays in this issue do not resolve the tension between efforts to refine techniques of governmental reason and strategies of resistance, between attempts to sedentarize trans identities and movements that refuse such settling, or between universalizing imperatives to classify and local demands to reject incorporation into a global schematics of gender difference organized by male/female, man/woman, cis-/trans-, trans-/homo-, or white/color dichotomies. Some attempt to do both, while all ultimately fall on one side or the other of various problematics. Our goal in curating this issue has been less to gather a collection of articles that definitively settle these vexed questions than to stage a conversation in which the stakes of the game are made visible.
This study examines how United States (US) teachers’ experiences and beliefs may be predictive of... more This study examines how United States (US) teachers’ experiences and beliefs may be predictive of their intervention in anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) bullying and harassment using a US national sample of teachers (N = 726) who completed an online survey. Results from regression analysis indicated that knowing LGBT people, awareness of general bullying and harassment, awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment, and self-efficacy related to intervention in homophobic remarks were significant predictors of teachers’ frequency of intervention in homophobic remarks. Teachers’ sense of obligation to ensure safe schools for LGBT youth was not predictive of intervention. Implications for teacher education include: providing opportunities for exposure to LGBT people; raising awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment; and building teachers’ skills to intervene in anti-LGBT behaviors.
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers ’ re...
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal f... more The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) requires that states receiving U.S. federal funds directed at child abuse implement mandated reporting laws. As a result, all states have adopted legislation requiring teachers and other professionals who deal with children to report suspicions of child abuse. The federal mandate for such reporting laws assumes that teachers will have the capability to fulfill their role as mandated reporters. However, prior research suggests that educators do not always report their suspicions of child abuse to child protective services. Using survey data from a sample of teachers trained by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, this study investigated whether teachers are currently prepared for their role as mandated reporters. Prior research had found that mandated reporters vary in the level to which they comply with reporting policies. This study assessed the potential factors accounting for variations in teachers’ rep...
For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, schools are often sites of exclusion an... more For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, schools are often sites of exclusion and victimization. Research has demonstrated that LGBT youth experience elevated rates of victimization and bullying at school relative to their peers, but less research has explored the contexts and characteristics of schools that enable negative attitudes and behaviors toward LGBT youth. The authors examine how US schools construct environments that are unwelcoming and unsafe for LGBT students and largely fail to provide the supports that could improve the school learning climate. They examine strategies and practices employed by educators, students, and education advocates that can disrupt hetero- and gender-normative practices in schools. Specifically, this chapter examine the mechanisms by which LGBT-related school supports—gay–straight alliances (GSAs), comprehensive anti-bullying/harassment school policies, supportive educators, and LGBT-inclusive curricula—support students’ well-being and academic success and challenge the hetero- and gender-normativity embedded in US secondary schools.
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Papers by Emily Greytak