Pathways to Activism: Identity and Participation in LGBT Activism at Christian Colleges and Universities

• In Event: 1251 - Mobilization

Abstract

Why do people participate in activist groups? Social movement scholarship traditionally suggests that a single set of characteristics (such as socialization, prior activist group participation, attitudinal affinity, microstructural availability, and biographical availability) can distinguish activist group participants from nonparticipants. Yet scholarship seldom considers the differences that exist among participants themselves, and thus, with only a few recent exceptions, most scholarship fails to consider the possibility that people follow multiple pathways into activist groups. Drawing on analyses of in-depth interviews with 65 student participants in LGBT activist groups at four Christian colleges and universities – an emerging site of contention for LGBT activists in the U.S. – I identify three separate pathways to activist group participation that are linked to variation in participants’ most salient identities. Students with highly politicized identities very much exhibit the set of characteristics traditionally associated with activist group participants, having been raised in liberal households, having previously participated in activists groups, reporting preexisting agreement with the goals and tactics of their activist group, and being surrounded by friends who support their involvement in LGBT activism. By contrast, students with salient religious and LGBT identities generally contradict the prototypical activist identified in past studies; few report extensive socialization into liberal attitudes or prior activist group involvement, and in the case of religious participants, they sometimes come to agreement with the cause of LGBT rights only after joining the activist group. The paper advances theory on activist group participation and contributes a new typology of activist group participants that is potentially generalizable to other movements.

Author

• Jonathan Scott Coley, Oklahoma State University