Understanding the complex manifestations of sexual stigma is crucial in helping to prevent discrimination toward sexual minorities. In this research, we examined the role of heterosexism within political ideology systems and the process through which these systems promote discrimination by focusing on sexual prejudice. Across four studies, we tested the predictions that more conservative political ideologies and greater levels of sexual prejudice will be associated with more negative evaluations of an applicant with a sexual stigma, and that prejudice will mediate the link between ideology and evaluation. We employed an experimental paradigm such that participants were presented nearly identical information in an intern applicant evaluation context, however, cues to sexual stigma were either present or absent. Overall, conservative ideology negatively predicted evaluation in the stigma, but not the control, condition and greater levels of sexual prejudice more strongly negatively predicted evaluations in the stigma, relative to control, condition. Finally, whereas ideology indirectly predicted candidate evaluation through prejudice generally, the effect was stronger for the applicant with the sexual stigma. This research extends the scholarship linking ideology to sexual stigma by examining employment discrimination and testing the mediating role of prejudice linking ideology to discrimination. By examining the role of ideology, it also broadens the research on bias in employment contexts. Understanding the role of both political ideology as well as individual sexual prejudice in discrimination may facilitate efforts to dismantle discrimination.

Public opinion plays an important role in shaping the policy process. We examined public input in the form of written public comments to interrogate group expression and public values in school policymaking. Drawing on theoretical and methodological tenets of critical policy and critical discourse analysis, our study examined 3,339 written public comments across two school districts undergoing school rezoning, which is the process of drawing and redrawing school attendance boundaries. Our findings highlight the complexity of public opinion on rezoning policies related to 1) competing values and visions for school diversity, 2) racialized conceptualizations of community members’ sense of belonging, and 3) forms of boundary maintenance used to discursively resist boundary changes by excluding students and families of color from crucial resources. As more U.S. districts consider rezoning to balance the racial and/or economic composition of schools, this study contributes new insight into stakeholders’ implicit and explicit racial attitudes, motivations, and values in response to rezoning’s complex policy process.

A critical lever in the fight against poverty is to improve attitudes toward those living in poverty. Attempting to understand the factors that impact these attitudes, we ask: Does believing that meritocracy exists (descriptive meritocracy) sustain negative attitudes? Using cross-sectional (N = 301) and experimental (N = 439) methods, we found that belief in the United States as a meritocracy is associated with blaming people living in poverty and predicts negative attitudes toward them. Replicating and extending these findings, we experimentally manipulated beliefs in meritocracy and blame. Weakening American Dream beliefs predicted improved attitudes toward those in poverty. Understanding the nuanced role of belief systems in attitudes toward those in poverty provides strategies for promoting more positive thoughts and feelings.

The sexual exploitation of students is a worldwide problem. In the U.S., the problem is three-fold: (1) Ten percent of public school students report being sexually abused by a school employee. (2) There is little in the existing research that identifies and describes the school culture, patterns, and conditions in which educator sexual misconduct occurs. (3) Because no one has systematically documented the school culture and the behaviors and patterns of adults who sexually abuse children in schools, school professionals fail to understand what patterns and behaviors should trigger concern, supervision, investigation, and/or reporting. Stopping sexual misconduct directed toward students means understanding the process that adults use to prepare students to be abused so that they do not tell, do not fight, and acquiesce. This process, called grooming, has the purpose of gaining student trust, as well as the trust of parents and colleagues. This study examines school employee sexual misconduct toward students in school in the United States and is based upon an analysis of 222 cases of school employee sexual misconduct toward a student where a school employee was convicted of student sexual abuse. The findings identify red flag grooming patterns used with students, colleagues, and parents.