Impact of Ukrainian LGBTQI Students’ Victimization at School on Academic Outcomes and Future Educational Aspirations

• In Event: Building a global understanding of LGBTQ youth and schools: Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe

Abstract

After the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2015, activists received an opportunity to advocate for human rights for the Ukrainian LGBTQI community within Ukrainian European Integration. Since that period, awareness regarding LGBTQI issues has increased across the country, as have attacks on LGBTQI activists, allies, and reports of LGBTQI-related harassment at school. Fulcrum is one of the leading non-governmental organizations working to advocate for and protect the rights of LGBTQ people in Ukraine. In the summer of 2017, the Ukrainian School Climate Survey was conducted to document the problem of anti-LGBTQ bullying in schools, and use the findings to strengthen government advocacy work. The final sample consisted of a total of 718 students and encompassed all regions of Ukraine. Results indicate that almost half of LGBTQ students in Ukraine feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation (49%), and about one-third because of their gender expression (32%). Further, most LGBTQ students encounter verbal harassment at school because of their sexual orientation (62.9%) and gender expression (64.7%).

In addition to documenting general indicators of school safety for LGBTQ students, it is important to understand the potential negative consequences of in-school victimization, which has been not been well documented in Eastern Europe, or specifically in Ukraine.

We examined the relationship between victimization based on sexual orientation and two indicators of educational attainment: lifetime educational aspirations and achievement (reported grades) through Pearson correlations. Higher victimization was associated with both lower educational aspirations (r = -.10, p < .01) and lower achievement (r = .12, p < .01).

We further examined whether the presence of positive LGBT-related supports in school buffered the relationship of victimization and academic indicators through a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVAs). With two dependent variables, lifetime educational aspirations and achievement (reported school grades), we examined group differences by high/low victimization regarding sexual orientation by the presence of educators supportive of LGBT students.

The multivariate effect was significant for victimization, supportive educators and for the interaction. For educational aspirations, as shown in the figure, the interaction between victimization and supportive educators was significant, indicating that at low levels of victimization, having supportive educators at school was associated with higher educational aspirations; but at high levels of victimization, supportive educators did not have an effect. For achievement, there was no significant interaction.

These data provide new insight into the experiences of LGBT school students in Ukraine. Most of these students experience frequent harassment and assault related to their sexual orientation, which in turn negatively affects their educational success. The minority of LGBT students reported having any educators who were supportive of LGBT students. However, having supportive educators may enhance the educational experience for these students even though it may not necessarily offset the negative effects of victimization. Within last 5 years bullying has become highly discussed topic in Ukrainian media and policy-making educational intuitions due to increasing reported cases and UNICEF surveillance data. LGBT focused research is crucial to advocate inclusion of queer-student needs into the anti-bullying school agenda.

Author

• Roman Ivasiy, Georgia State University
  Presenting Author