Supportive school strategies for sexually and gender diverse students: A meta-analysis of the associations with bullying-victimization experiences and feelings of school safety

Abstract

Sexually and gender-diverse secondary school students experience more bullying-victimization and feel less safe at school than their heterosexual, cisgender peers. Therefore, clarifying the associations of various LGBTQ-targeted school-based strategies (enumerated policies, school-staff training, inclusive curriculum, GSAs) with these school experiences is crucial. Furthermore, it is important to determine who benefits most from these strategies and how differences in study characteristics affect findings. We used a multivariate meta-analytic model with an approximated variance-covariance matrix to investigate the associations between LGBTQ-targeted school-based strategies and both outcomes: students’ bullying-victimization experiences and school safety feelings. Our findings showed that students in secondary schools with LGBTQ-targeted strategies reported lower bullying-victimization and higher feelings of school safety, although the associations were modest. While these strategies seemed to benefit sexually and gender diverse students more and thus seem to help reduce the disparities, students of color seemed to benefit less. Furthermore, compared to research reports, peer-reviewed studies showed more variability across multiple outcomes, such as types of victimization or student sub-groups. A notable research gap exists regarding the role of school-staff training in relation to these outcomes.