Synergy in/and Tension: Community-Partnership Research for LGBTQ Youth

• In Event: 2-017 - Leveraging Community- and Practitioner-Research Partnerships to Advance Equity and Justice in Developmental Science

Integrative Statement

A strong body of research evidence has emerged in the last decade identifying school policies and practices that improve school experiences and school climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer(LGBTQ), and all students. These research results have in some cases informed the development of school policies and practices that are inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Yet there remains no SOGI-inclusive federal safe schools legislation, and there is significant variability in the degree to which SOGI issues are included in policies and practices across states, school districts, and schools.

We report on a university/community organization partnership project designed to respond to a changing socio-political climate related to SOGI education equality in Texas. In fact, Texas is a state that has been legislatively unsupportive of SOGI issues, but where local, administrative, or informal forms of policy and practice are promising. The partnership included a research team that focuses on the health and rights of LGBTQ youth, a local LGBTQ youth advocacy NGO (Texas GSA Network), and a statewide LGBTQ policy organization (Equality Texas). The goal was to understand whether and how students, parents, and school personnel can be better prepared to advocate for SOGI-inclusive school policies and practices, and to respond to efforts to thwart them. We developed a strategic engagement plan to build capacity of students, parents, and school personnel to combine research evidence on SOGI-focused policies and practices with their personal stories to make the case for positive change in schools.

We briefly review the project’s research goals, design, and outcomes, and then focus attention on experiences of synergy and tension (as well as the synergy that comes in or because of tension) through three themes that we have identified as salient in this partnership. First, we discuss the privilege of science in community-research contexts: How do community-partnership research teams reconcile the privileging of scientific evidence with the urgency of “anecdotes” or narrative information? Second, we explore the power and constraints for partners (both organizations and individuals) whose work is necessarily embedded in local socio-political contexts: What are the privileges and limits of a local lens on research issues? In a state like Texas, how can being deeply rooted in local contexts bolster – or constrain – the possibilities for that research? Last, we explore inter-project power dynamics: How do partners reconcile differences in levels of experience, responsibility, priorities, and resources to work collaboratively, with the goal of a horizontal power structure? Under what circumstances do horizontal power structures limit productivity? Session attendees should come away with a better understanding of the logistical, interpersonal, and political synergies in/and tensions of community-based research.

Authors

• Stephen T. Russell, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Meg D. Bishop, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Salvatore Ioverno, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author