Specturm of Success: Decoding the Academic Achievement of Gay, Bisexual, and Queer+ Men

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 18: Intersectional Journeys: Navigating Identity, Race, and Mobility in Education

Abstract

Research has shown that gay men outperform straight men and in some cases straight women. The success of gay men has been linked to the very reasons straight men have failed to meet academic expectations, namely, gender expression. Gay men experience distance from the normative masculine culture thought to cause academic disengagement in straight men. I will refer to this explanation as the masculine culture framework (MCF). That said, MCF fails to adequately explain how gay, bisexual, and queer+ (GBQ) men benefit from historically hostile and heteronormative institutions such as schools. This study aims to complicate and extend MCF using a mixed methods approach to understand the extent that masculine culture influences the academic performance of GBQ youth.

Author

• Jonathon Briones, Brown University