Fostering school safety and valuing intersectional identities: Promoting Black queer youths’ sense of belonging in schools (2024)

School belonging is associated with a number of positive psychosocial outcomes for adolescents. When students feel like they belong, they are more socially and academically engaged. Concerningly, students with intersectional identities—namely, Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and other sexual minority (LGBQ+) students—report feeling lower levels of school belonging than their peers do. This disparity is explained, in part, by how unsafe these students feel in school; however, little research has explored how to promote Black LGBQ+ youths’ sense of school belonging. Without research that includes these intersectional perspectives, policy and programming interventions may not adequately address the unique needs of Black LGBQ+ students. In a study recently published in Translational Issues in Psychological Science, the researchersused an intersectional framework to examine how school safety and efforts to actively value students’ identities may promote Black LGBQ+ youths’ sense of school belonging.

The researchers examined the experiences of 389 students who attended majority-Black high schools in the broader Chicagoland area. Students self-reported their senses of safety and belonging and the degree to which they believed their identities were valued at school. Moderated mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of both sense of school safety and perceived identity valuation by staff on LGBQ+ and non-LGBQ+ students’ sense of school belonging, and these effects significantly depended on race. Non-Black LGBQ+ students reported higher levels of sense of school safety than Black straight students did. This suggests that the combination of a student’s privileged and nonprivileged identities, as well as their school context, are key to understanding students’ sense of safety in school.

Additionally, compared with straight Black students, Black LGBQ+ students felt like their identities were less valued, and they felt less safe at school. Among Black LGBQ+ students, these reduced feelings of safety and identity valuation explained their lower ratings of school belonging. The results of this study suggest that in addition to bolstering students’ sense of school safety, efforts to value each aspect of students’ intersectional identities promote belonging.

This work is one of the pieces necessary for understanding school belonging among multiply marginalized students. The researchers recommend investing more effort in including the perspectives and expertise of Black LGBQ+ students in future research and programming. One way to include Black LGBQ+ students in the research process is through critical or participatory research. Within these paradigms, youths and researchers cocreate research that explores issues students directly experience in schools, allowing them to discover and implement sustainable solutions to the issues they face. Additionally, developing programs that affirm students’ sexual identity within racial affinity spaces or increasing the number of gender and sexuality alliances within majority-Black schools could help Black LGBQ+ students feel like more aspects of their identities are valued within their school. Black LGBQ+ students, like all students, deserve to attend a school where they feel safe, valued, and a sense of belonging.

This article is in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area.

Allison Lloyd, MA, is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in community psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focuses on trans and gender-expansive adolescents’ perceptions of and experiences with law enforcement, as well as LGBTQIA+ youths’ experiences within the education system more broadly.

Yael Granot, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology at Smith College. Her research focuses on people’s attitudes about justice and how people perceive and interact with legal actors and evidence.

Elizabeth Rovegno, BS, is a research associate for NORC at the University of Chicago and a research assistant for the Loyola University Chicago Risk and Resilience Lab. Their research interests include the well-being and experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals, police in schools, and students’ school climate perceptions.

Ashley Bazin, EdM, is a research associate at Smith College’s Risk and Resilience Lab. Their research interests include the intersectional experiences of disabled people and the development of accessible interventions.

Alba Bryant, BA, recently graduated from Smith College with a BA in psychology and sociology. Her research interests include the educational experiences of students of color, especially in predominantly White institutions, as well as the different ways in which people with various identities are able or unable to navigate social systems in the United States.

Maryse Richards, PhD, is a professor emerita, clinical and developmental psychology, at Loyola University Chicago. Her current research interests include the developmental stage of adolescence with a focus on school discipline practices, exposure to community violence, cross-age peer mentoring, poverty, and resilience and how these relate to psychosocial well-being.