Creating Digital Safe Spaces for Gender Expression and Sexual Diversity

Abstract

A school is where individuals go to learn regardless of their ethnicity, physical appearance, physical and/or mental abilities, gender, or sexual orientation. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) population of students generally face discrimination and/or misunderstanding in diverse groups of students. This chapter is designed to help educators better recognize this group of individuals and to ensure their right to a safe learning environment. Additionally, this chapter includes advice for educators to help students better understand personal sharing in the digital world, in dealing with and preventing cyberbullying, and with creating digital safe spaces for everyone, including LGBTQ students. Advice for preventing and dealing with cyberbullying is also included for administrators, parents, and students.

Reflecting on the Brink: At-Risk Student Experiences with Emergency Online Learning amid COVID-19

“…A strength of this data source was that it was not limited by our interactions with the students because they wrote freely in response to the discussion board prompts. This phenomenon supports prior research finding that college students may feel their most liberated and authentic selves in online spaces, free to communicate in ways that are safe and make sense to them (Justice & Hooker, 2017;Miller, 2017;Nicolazzo et al, 2022). For example, in class discussions, students might describe gratitude for family support but in their discussion board posts they would highlight the more complex experience of emergency online learning in a family environment.…”

“…Recent work on the importance of allowing Gen Z to critically reflect and practice metacognition in online spaces has been pioneered by queer research (Miller, 2017;Nicolazzo et al, 2022), a body of work that has been lauded for the notion of creating "safe spaces in online places" (Lucero, 2017, p. 117). Here, researchers have found that many minoritized students may feel their most authentic, comfortable selves when participating in online discussions with peers (Justice & Hooker, 2017;Lucero, 2017;Miller, 2017). As a result, this study makes a valuable contribution to the teaching and learning literature specific to how at-risk students may feel most liberated to reflect openly and honestly about their experiences during mandated, emergency online learning.…”

“…This study unveiled a deeper understanding of how at-risk Gen Z students experienced emergency online learning and, in some cases, developed persistence strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students' weekly discussion board posts allowed the research team to learn directly from students in online spaces where students were potentially more likely to be their authentic selves (Justice & Hooker, 2017;Miller, 2017;Nicolazzo et al, 2022), as students found support among each other, their teachers, and their family. We applied Sanford's (1966) theory to examine the unique challenges at-risk Gen Z students may have encountered when learning online during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…We gathered all discussion board posts across all questions and all three semesters, and all data were stored in password-protected files. We decided to analyze only online discussion board posts, as prior research has suggested that students may express themselves more authentically or honestly through online media compared to face-to-face interactions (Justice & Hooker, 2017;Lucero, 2017;Miller, 2017;Nicolazzo et al, 2022). We then cleaned the data and assigned pseudonyms to mask identifying student information.…”

“…Additionally, the research team chose to delimit this study in important ways. First, the team decided to analyze online discussion board postings to answer this study's research questions, as prior research insisted that students may be more willing to disclose sensitive information in online settings (Justice & Hooker, 2017;Miller, 2017;Nicolazzo et al, 2022). Moreover, the research delimited data from students enrolled from spring 2020, fall 2020, and spring 2021, even though the student success course will run beyond spring 2021.…”