Development, Socioemotional Adjustment, and School Climate Perceptions of Sexual Minority Youth

Author(s): Smith, Danielle Sayre | Advisor(s): Juvonen, Jaana H | Abstract: This dissertation consists of two studies examining development and wellbeing of sexual minority youth. Both studies rely on data from a large, longitudinal study following ethnically and socioeconomically diverse youth across high school. Both studies examine patterns of romantic attraction using a novel and developmentally sensitive measure. In Study 1, the goals are to identify various attraction patterns at each grade level (9th-12th) as well as compare socioemotional wellbeing across romantic attraction groups. Results from latent class analysis of attraction data revealed five patterns of attraction identified at each grade level, including other-gender attraction, same-gender attraction, and attraction to both boys and girls, as well as classes characterized by uncertainty and by limited attraction. One additional class was identified in 11th and 12th grade as having “heteroflexible” attraction. Further, socioemotional correlates of the attraction classes varied, with multi-gender and heteroflexible youth reporting the most consistent disparities in loneliness and social anxiety, and youth with low or no attraction demonstrating marked differences between the beginning and end of high school. Study 2 focuses on end of high school, examining alignment between romantic attraction and sexual identity at 12th grade. Results indicated that although alignment was high among those attracted exclusively to other gender individuals (identifying as straight) or same-gender individuals (identifying as gay or lesbian), alignment was much lower among the other attraction classes, with high proportions of youth identifying as straight. Disparities in school climate perceptions were demonstrated whether operationalizing sexual orientation as identity or attraction. However, attraction classes with particularly high rates of straight identity—who would be grouped with the sexual majority in identity-based research—were among those reporting that they felt less safe and less like they belonged than sexual majority youth. Taken together, these studies highlight the complexity of adolescent sexual orientation, the importance of focusing on attraction when examining sexual minority adolescents, and differences in wellbeing across sexual orientation groups. These findings make both methodological and conceptual contributions to the current body of literature on sexual minority youth and highlight the need for both researchers and practitioners to broaden their conceptualizations of sexual orientation.