Creating Safe Spaces: Opportunities, Resources, and LGBTQ Student Groups at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Research shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) student groups facilitate LGBTQ students’ personal development. Nevertheless, we know little about the prevalence of LGBTQ student groups and why some colleges and universities are home to LGBTQ student groups while others are not. Drawing on our original database of officially recognized LGBTQ student groups across all four-year, not-for-profit U.S. colleges and universities, we first show that LGBTQ student groups can be found at 62 percent of U.S. colleges and universities. Guided by social movement theory, and employing logistic regression analyses, we then show that LGBTQ groups are more likely to be present in favorable political contexts (Democratic-leaning states), favorable educational sectors (public and secular schools), and schools that have the human and organizational resources necessary to support them. The study advances scholarship on LGBTQ issues in higher education and holds important practical implications for students working to promote LGBTQ inclusion in U.S. schools.

Making Space: Racialized Organizations and Student of Color Groups at U.S. Colleges and Universities

“…We log this variable as it is highly right-skewed. Finally, informed by research showing that schools with more students are more likely to have a wide range of different student organizations (Coley and Das 2020; Dixon et al 2008; Van Dyke et al 2007), we include a variable measuring the size of the student body (IPEDS 2019). We similarly log this variable as it is highly right-skewed.…”

“…Scholars have also theorized that wealthier schools are more likely to be home to student organizations, possibly because wealthier schools offer more support to registered student organizations (Reger 2018:564). Past empirical research has generally supported educational opportunity theories of student mobilization, finding that LGBTQ student groups are more likely to be found at public, secular, and wealthy colleges and universities (Coley and Das 2020; Kane 2013).…”

“…A final social movement theory that has informed student organization research is resource mobilization theory , which would suggest that schools with sufficient human resources would be more likely to have student of color groups (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). For example, past studies have shown that a large number of students increases the odds that a school will be home to student groups such as LGBTQ groups (Coley and Das 2020), graduate student labor unions (Dixon et al 2008), and anti-sweatshop groups (Van Dyke et al 2007). This is likely because schools with larger student bodies have more people who are willing to join or support student groups.…”

Creating Secular Spaces: Religious Threat and the Presence of Secular Student Alliances at US Colleges and Universities1

“…Because secular organizing has recently been dominated by white men (Cragun 2015;Guenther 2019), I also include variables measuring the percent of white students and percent of students who are men at a school. Past studies analyzing the presence of student groups ranging from LGBTQ groups to anti-sweatshop groups to shooting sports organizations have included nearly all of these control variables of interest (Coley 2018(Coley , 2020Van Dyke et al 2007;Fetner and Kush 2008;Kane 2013;McElroy and Coley 2021).…”

“…Opportunity-based theories of social movements, for example, would predict that student groups such as Secular Student Alliances would most likely form in places that seem favorable to their cause. Indeed, scholars have drawn on opportunity-based theories to argue that student groups such as anti-sweatshop groups and LGBTQ groups are more likely to be present in Democratic-leaning states, because students believe they have more opportunities to mobilize and create change in those states (Coley and Das 2020;Van Dyke et al 2007;Fine 2012). Similarly, another study shows that pro-gun student groups are more likely to be present in Republican-leaning states and that such groups spiked during the Presidency of Donald Trump, because Trump's election shaped students' perceptions of the types of groups that might be successful in their states (McElroy and Coley 2021).…”