Sexuality, Youth, and Anti-bullying’s Unintended Outcomes

• In Event: 196 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Paper Session. Children and Youth Troubling Sex and Gender

Abstract

This study ethnographically explores a youth-led controversy over sexuality, bullying, and tolerance that unfolded in the fall of 2015. Through intensive fieldwork, observations of students’ use of social media, and interviews with 91 youth and school officials, I examine how gender, sexuality, and class shape this community’s experiences with this conflict as well as their experiences with anti-bullying initiatives. The young people in this study are coming of age during a period of radical change in both sexuality and gender regimes, and they are active in negotiating these shifts within their peer groups, often with limited support from the adults in their lives. Yet with the advent of widespread anti-bullying policies that are ideally meant to protect sexual and gender minorities, youth are also subjected to intensive adult surveillance over how they engage with each other in making sense of these broader cultural changes. As this analysis will show, there are a variety of unintended outcomes generated from these initiatives, as youth collectively negotiate both the limits and limitations of tolerance in their community.

Author

• Sarah Ann Miller, University of Massachusetts, Amherst