Queering/Querying Student Success: Exploring Structural Relationships between Queer and Trans Student College Enrollment and Multiple Contexts

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how high school experiences relate to queer and trans (QT) student college enrollment. We employ Iloh’s (2019) model of college-going decisions and trajectories to problematize college choice, recognizing the dimensions of privilege and access to resources and their roles in postsecondary planning. Using this theory, we examine the dimensions of time, information, and opportunity with respect to college-going behaviors for QT high school students.

Data for our study come from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), an ongoing study within the series of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) secondary longitudinal studies. The core mission of HSLS:09 is to explore secondary to postsecondary transition plans, and the educational and social experiences that affect these shifts. HSLS:09 is the first Department of Education dataset to include questions related to gender and sexual orientation, providing the opportunity to examine the college going process for QT students.

There is a moral imperative to center QT student experiences in education research given the hostile national and local climates for these students. Understanding student college enrollment processes and trends is critical for policy formation and resource allocation to serve QT students. Policymakers, educational leaders, and students themselves give great weight to college enrollment indicators, which have important implications for accountability purposes and the development of state and federal education policies.

Authors

• Jason C. Garvey, University of Vermont

• C. V. Dolan, University of Vermont