Course Description
According to research in psychology and gender studies, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are coming out earlier than they did in previous decades. Although decisions to come out in high school may reflect greater societal acceptance of gender diversity, LGBTQ youth still face considerable challenges. LGBTQ youth are at a higher risk than other youth for drug use, depression, sexual abuse, and homelessness. This seminar will focus on current research on topics such as transgender identities, the coming out process, queer theory, sexuality education, and approaches to supporting gender diverse youth.
Instructor: Beth Haines, associate professor of psychology
Beth Haines (University of Wisconsin, M.S., Ph.D., 1988) is a developmental psychologist with interests in how people solve problems and make decisions, and in factors that interrupt the reasoning process and lead to reasoning biases. She is particularly interested in adolescent social development, with special interests in gender roles and identity development. She also does theoretical and empirical work on quantitative literacy in high school and college students. In addition, she studies children’s and adolescents’ causal reasoning in relationship to their adjustment, and developed a measure called the Children’s Attributional Style Interview (Conley, Haines, Hilt, & Metalsky, 2001). She teaches in psychology and in the gender studies program. She is a member of the Society for Research on Child Development, and the American Psychological Association, including membership in the Society for the Psychology of Women.
