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1 – 10 of 64Gerald P. Mallon and Jazmine Perez
Recent research finds that youth who identify as transgender or gender-expansive are disproportionately incarcerated in juvenile justice systems and are treated differently from…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent research finds that youth who identify as transgender or gender-expansive are disproportionately incarcerated in juvenile justice systems and are treated differently from their non-trans peers (Himmelstein and Brückner, 2011; Hunt and Moodie-Mills, 2012; Irvine, 2010; Mitchum and Moodie-Mills, 2014). Juvenile justice systems have paid little attention to this group of young people in terms of their unique service needs and risk factors. Using qualitative methods, the researchers analyze in-depth interviews and focus group findings from formerly incarcerated trans youth in juvenile justice settings to better understand their experiences. This paper aims to examine the challenges for young people, and, as well as considered recommendations for juvenile justice professionals to study toward making changes in policies, practices and programs that are needed to support young people who are transgender or gender expansive.
Design/methodology/approach
Using qualitative, case examples and descriptive analysis, this paper describes the experiences of trans youth in juvenile justice settings and studies toward developing models of promoting trans-affirming approaches to enhance juvenile justice institutions for trans and gender-expansive youth placed in them. The paper describes the evolution of an approach used by the authors, in New York state juvenile justice settings to increase a trans-affirming perspective as a central role in the organization’s strategy and design, and the methods it is using to institutionalize this critical change. Findings culled from the focus groups and in-depth interviews with 15 former residents of juvenile justice settings and several (3) key staff members from the juvenile justice system, focusing on policies, practices and training models are useful tools for assessing progress and recommending actions to increase the affirming nature of such systems. At its conclusion, this chapter will provide clear outcomes and implications for the development of policies, practices and programs with trans and gender expansive youth in juvenile justice systems.
Findings
Finding are conceptualized in six thematic categories, namely, privacy, access to health and mental health care, the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, name and pronoun use, clothing, appearance and mannerism, and housing issues.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited as it focuses on formerly incarcerated youth in the New York City area.
Practical implications
The following implications for practice stemming from this study are as follows: juvenile justice professionals (including judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, probation officers and detention staff) must treat – and ensure others treat – all trans and gender-expansive youth with fairness, dignity and respect, including prohibiting any attempts to ridicule or change a youth’s gender identity or expression. Having written nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy is also essential. These policies can address issues such as prohibiting harassment of youth or staff who are trans or gender expansive, requiring the use of respectful and inclusive language and determining how gender rules (e.g. usage of “male or “female” bathrooms, gender-based room assignments) will be addressed for transgender and gender-nonconforming youth. Programs should also provide clients and staff with training and helpful written materials. Juvenile justice professionals must promote the well-being of transgender youth by allowing them to express their gender identity through choice of clothing, name, hair-style and other means of expression and by ensuring that they have access to appropriate medical care if necessary. Juvenile justice professionals must receive training and resources regarding the unique societal, familial and developmental challenges confronting trans youth and the relevance of these issues to court proceedings. Training must be designed to address the specific professional responsibilities of the audience (i.e. judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, probation officers and detention staff). Juvenile justice professionals must develop individualized, developmentally appropriate responses to the behavior of each trans youth, tailored to address the specific circumstances of his or her or their life.
Social implications
Providing trans-affirming services to youth in juvenile justice settings is a matter of equity and should be the goal strived for by all systems that care for these young people. Helping trans and gender-expansive youth reenter and reintegrate into society should be a primary goal. There are many organizations and systems that stand ready to assist juvenile justice systems and facilities in supporting trans and gender expansive youth in their custody and helping them to rehabilitate, heal and reenter a society that welcomes their participation and where they can thrive and not just survive.
Originality/value
The paper is original in that it examines the lived experiences of trans and gender-expansive youth in juvenile justice systems. An area, which has not been fully explored in the professional literature.
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The purpose of this review is to critically analyse the extant research and help readers understand the ways the school-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) can…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this review is to critically analyse the extant research and help readers understand the ways the school-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) can contribute towards youth development and urge policymakers to implement nationwide good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE.
Design/methodology/approach
This literature review has been designed using the extant information available on Google Scholar, Web of Science (WoS) and PubMed.
Findings
The findings of this review inform that there is a significant need amongst the youth of the day for good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE. Also, the findings suggest that there are significant associations between school-based CSE and youth development.
Research limitations/implications
This research paper although draws from extant literature about sexuality education and its delivery across the globe, it applies the sexuality education scenario in India.
Practical implications
The findings of this review aim to implicate nationwide policy-level changes to implement CSE in the school curricula. There are more practical behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, which are discussed in the review.
Social implications
Due to the behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, it may help in the upbringing of responsible citizens who are free of health complications, who can make independent health-related decisions and look after each other in the community.
Originality/value
This review is an original contribution from the author. Whilst there is extant literature about CSE and youth development, this article fills the void by investigating the interdependent contributions that both the concepts can make to one another and encourages more research on this topic.
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Manar Aslan and Eylem Paslı Gürdoğan
Equality is a basic human right. However, LGBTQ individuals often have their human rights violated because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. They also experience…
Abstract
Purpose
Equality is a basic human right. However, LGBTQ individuals often have their human rights violated because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. They also experience discrimination because of homophobic and transphobic attitudes. They frequently deal with derisive attitudes at school, are discriminated against in the workplace and struggle to access health services. This paper aims to determine the discriminatory attitudes of nurses in their social and professional lives toward LGBTQ individuals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study involved 503 nurses and used a questionnaire to examine their views regarding members of the LGBTQ community. The questionnaire consisted of 24 questions. Ten experts from the fields of social psychology, sociology, and nursing provided the necessary inputs, which were subsequently incorporated into the questionnaire.
Findings
The nurses were found to have a negative attitude toward LGBTQ individuals; they felt that they should not be allowed to live in comfort in Turkey and that they disrupted the social order and compromised public morality. It was observed that married (in general), male (in particular), and have fewer nursing education nurses are much more likely to have a discriminatory attitude toward LGBTQ people, and they were more discriminatory in their society rather than in their professional lives.
Originality/value
According to the principles of justice and equality, which are a prominent part of the nursing code of ethics – “With the awareness that all people have equal rights, the nurse serves regardless of race, language, religion, age, gender, belief, social and economic status and political opinion” – nurses should not have a discriminatory attitude. This study reveals the inequality and the ethical problems that riddle Turkey’s health sector.
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R. Lucas Platero and Miguel Ángel López-Sáez
The purpose of this study is to examine the situation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queer and asexual (LGBTQA+) youth in Spain, pre-examining the links between the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the situation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queer and asexual (LGBTQA+) youth in Spain, pre-examining the links between the people they live with, their support networks and their perception of being a burden.
Design/methodology/approach
This study traces some brushstrokes through the preliminary results of the LGBTQA+ population between 13 and 21 years old (n = 445). These data are part of a larger project with 2,800+ respondents.
Findings
This study’s data highlight the connections between places of cohabitation, support and vulnerability in a crisis situation. In general, gender identity, age, support and feelings of acceptance have been key variables in identifying psychosocial factors related to the health of this population. Lastly, the authors offer some future guidelines to improve the situation of young people in the face of new situations of confinement, incorporating good practices for children and youth services.
Research limitations/implications
The use of the snowball technique for data collection may limit the representativeness of the sample. In the same way that data collection is used through access to an online questionnaire, it can limit access to certain people.
Practical implications
Address the psychosocial needs of LGBTQA+ youth, especially in crisis situations. With our data, we can improve services for future situations of confinement due to coronavirus, planning actions that include the youngest members of this population group, as well as those with non-normative sexualities and identities.
Social implications
Encourage and diversify support for LGBTQA+ youth from their families, peers, teachers and other professionals working in the youth field. This support would be congruent with the anti-discriminatory and trans-specific legislation existing in most Spanish regions. Furthermore, it would propose a social change that not only benefits LGTBQA+ people, as it allows for a more inclusive cultural change for all in terms of gender and sexuality.
Originality/value
New data obtained within the time frame of the state of alarm are provided, concerning a social group that has been little researched and that finds itself in an unprecedented health crisis.
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Fredrik Svärdsten and Kristina Tamm Hallström
The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of operation. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations.
Findings
We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation in this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audits.
Originality/value
The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both a trainer and an auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides for itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.
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Vanessa Kitzie, Travis Wagner and A. Nick Vera
This qualitative study explores how discursive power shapes South Carolina lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities' health…
Abstract
Purpose
This qualitative study explores how discursive power shapes South Carolina lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities' health information practices and how participants resist this power.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 28 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina engaged in semi-structured interviews and information world mapping–a participatory arts-based elicitation technique–to capture the context underlying how they and their communities create, seek, use and share health information. We focus on the information world maps for this paper, employing situational analysis–a discourse analytic method for visual data–to analyze them.
Findings
Six themes emerged describing how discursive power operates both within and outside of LGBTQIA+ communities: (1) producing absence, (2) providing unwanted information, (3) commoditizing LGBTQIA+ communities, (4) condensing LGBTQIA+ people into monoliths; (5) establishing the community's normative role in information practices; (6) applying assimilationist and metronormative discourses to information sources. This power negates people's information practices with less dominant LGBTQIA+ identities and marginalized intersectional identities across locations such as race and class. Participants resisted discursive power within their maps via the following tactics: (1) (re)appropriating discourses and (2) imagining new information worlds.
Originality/value
This study captures the perspectives of an understudied population–LGBTQIA+ persons from the American South–about a critical topic–their health–and frames these perspectives and topics within an informational context. Our use of information world mapping and situational analysis offers a unique and still underutilized set of qualitative methods within information science research.
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Josephine Pui-Hing Wong, Alan Tai-Wai Li, Maurice Kwong-Lai Poon and Kenneth Po-Lun Fung
Canadian HIV/AIDS researchers, service providers and policy-makers are faced with new challenges of providing effective and inclusive care that meets the needs of the changing…
Abstract
Purpose
Canadian HIV/AIDS researchers, service providers and policy-makers are faced with new challenges of providing effective and inclusive care that meets the needs of the changing populations infected with and affected by HIV. Since 2005 immigrants and refugees from ethno-racial minority communities have comprised close to 20 percent of all new HIV infections in Canada. Anecdotes shared by PLWHAs and service providers indicated that mental health challenges faced by newcomer PLWHAs was a priority concern for HIV prevention, treatment and care. This paper reports on the results of an exploratory study, which examined the complex factors that influence the mental health of immigrants and refugees living with HIV/AIDS (IR-PLWHAs).
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study is informed by a critical social science paradigm, which acknowledges that the everyday reality is shaped by interlocking systems of social processes and unequal power relations. The paper used a qualitative interpretative design and focus groups to explore the intersecting effects of living with HIV/AIDS, migration and settlement, and HIV stigma and discrimination on the mental health of IR-PLWHAs.
Findings
The paper found that in addition to social and economic marginalization, IR-PLWHAs experienced multiple stressors associated with their HIV status: neurocognitive and physical impairments, HIV stigma and discrimination, and fear of deportation. The paper also found that the experiences of stigma and discrimination among IR-PLWHAs were complex and contextual, closely linked to their social positions defined by the intersecting dimensions of race, class, gender, citizenship, sexualities, body norms, and HIV status. The paper concludes that effective HIV prevention, treatment and care, and mental health promotion in newcomer and ethno-racial minority communities must consider the bio-psycho-social connections of different stressors and the interlocking systems of oppression faced by IR-PLWHAs.
Research limitations/implications
This study was exploratory in nature with a small number of participants who were recruited through AIDS organizations in Toronto. Consequently, the recruitment strategy may reach only those who were connected to the AIDS organizations. The paper believes that IR-PLWHAs who were not connected to the AIDS organizations might experience even more social exclusion and marginalization. These factors may limit the transferability of this study.
Originality/value
This is the first study that explores the bio-psycho-social connections and intersecting determinants of mental health among immigrants and refugees living with HIV and AIDS in Canada. The results of this study contribute to cross-sector dialogue among practitioners and researchers in the HIV/AIDS, mental health, and immigration and settlement services sectors.
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Elian Eve Jentoft and Marit Haldar
Loneliness’ impact on health and wellbeing has emerged as a public health issue in several countries. Young people are increasingly understood as a ‘risk group’ and intervention…
Abstract
Purpose
Loneliness’ impact on health and wellbeing has emerged as a public health issue in several countries. Young people are increasingly understood as a ‘risk group’ and intervention target for loneliness-reduction. This research paper aims to present a discourse analysis of policies and political speech about young people and loneliness.
Design/methodology/approach
Using discourse analysis inspired by Carol Bacchi’s “What is the Problem Represented to Be” (WPR) approach, this cross-cultural analysis studies loneliness policy in the United Kingdom (UK) and Norway. In doing so, the authors ask: What is the problem of loneliness among young people represented to be in UK and Norwegian welfare policy?
Findings
The findings indicate paradoxical problematizations of the role technology plays among lonely young people, who, in this context, are divided in two categories: able normative and disabled youth. We reveal fundamental differences in beliefs about the impact of technology on these groups, and corresponding differences in the proposed solutions. The problem of young peoples’ loneliness is represented as uncertainty about potential harms of digital connectedness and reduced face-to-face interactions. In contrast, the problem of loneliness among disabled youth is represented as impeded access to social realms, with technology serving a benign role as equalizer.
Originality/value
Little research has examined this new policy field. The article contributes to filling this gap and encourages policymakers to consider how political discourses on loneliness may lead them to overlook digital interventions young people could find beneficial.
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This article aims to share findings from a youth-informed study with interracial anti-racist youth activist groups in two urban high schools.
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to share findings from a youth-informed study with interracial anti-racist youth activist groups in two urban high schools.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used mostly critical ethnographic methods.
Findings
The findings showed that the agency of youth activists amplified their literacies of love and resistance, organizing, critical teaching, and knowledge. More research is needed in English education related to youth organizing activities across contexts as youth organizing work is largely unknown or underused by educators and schools.
Originality/value
Overall, this research supports humanizing collectives that amplify the literacies of youth and position youth-centered education for liberation.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the human rights issues pertinent to adolescents of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities and the health consequences resulting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the human rights issues pertinent to adolescents of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities and the health consequences resulting for the transgression of these rights. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution endorsing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, 73 member states criminalize the activities of these individuals. The other member states do not impose legal penalties on these activities, yet sexual and gender minority youth within these states continue to experience acts of physical and psychological aggression.
Design/methodology/approach
A commissioned position paper grounded in a convenient scholarly literature review on this topic.
Findings
Human rights transgressions by states or individuals lead to minority stress affecting the mental health and physical health of these youth.
Originality/value
The author makes a number of recommendations to address some of the impact resulting from the transgression of human rights in the world.
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