Queering College Student Retention

Abstract

Retention literature and concepts warrant examination through the lens of queer theory, a poststructural body of thought about sexuality and gender, to understand their implications for queer students. Five themes found in the retention literature are addressed from a queer perspective: framing retention as an economic and labor problem; campus climate; the focus on programs, policies, and services; psychological traits; and positivistic approaches. Queering retention involves deconstructing retention binaries; problematizing the production of normative subjects through retention theory; focusing on institutional transformation; and examining retention as heteronormative domination. Queer failure and futurity are offered as possible new frames for retention. This essay seeks to raise questions, tensions, and complexities with no clear or simple solutions. Tentative and limited implications for practice and research are offered; however, they raise more questions than provide answers.

A systematic literature review on bi+ college students using an ecological lens.

“…By grounding research in a power-conscious epistemology attuned to the role of monosexism and other forms of oppression, scholars avoid too narrow a focus on individual or microlevel considerations devoid of needed context. For example, Denton (2020) articulated how student outcomes, such as retention and persistence in higher education, are often studied by applying cisheterosexist measures of success to queer students; Denton (2020) offered Halberstam’s (2011) idea of queer failure as a reframing, demonstrating how queer students failing to meet cisheterosexist measures of success may not be a result of individual shortcomings but more so the result of a cisheterosexist assessment of an inequitable system acting exactly as it was designed to. Although Denton was not speaking explicitly to bi+ student experiences, we echo his assertions here as being particularly applicable to bi+ collegians.…”

Factors associated with the financial strain of transgender and gender diverse college students

“…Despite progress in multiple LGBTQIA+ (a term encompassing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual, and two‐spirit) fronts, there is still widespread discrimination and violence directed at TGD people, including on college campuses (Beemyn and Rankin, 2011; Nicolazzo, 2016; Mizock and Hopwood, 2018; Rankin et al, 2019). Several studies have highlighted the marginalization experienced by TGD students, including the inability to obtain housing or bathrooms congruent with their gender, chilly academic environments, and outright physical violence (Goldberg and Kuvalanka, 2018; Denton, 2020; Griner et al, 2020). It is therefore unsurprising that TGD students report high rates of mental health issues and general difficulty graduating from postsecondary institutions (Messman and Leslie, 2019).…”