Mental health issues and victimization among LGBTQI-youth
Short description
The research project "Mental health issues and victimization among LGBTQI-youth: a comparative study in Swedish and Danish schools" investigates LGBTQI-students’ experiences of mental health issues and student victimization in school. LGBTQI-students’ are in many ways a marginalized group and their narratives and experiences are often forgotten or ignored. This research project will contribute with new insights to Nordic and wider international educational research on these issues.
A vast majority of LGBTQ+ youth report exposure to homophobia and transphobia in school. Violence and threats related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression often result in mental health issues. Today, there is a lack of research investigating LGBTQ+ youth’s experiences of mental health issues related to victimization in school. As a marginalized group, both with regard to vulnerability and minority position in school, LGBTQ+ students’ schooling experiences are often forgotten and even ignored in research. It is with this backdrop the proposed study aims to investigate these issues by conducting individual interviews with LGBTQ+ students aged 15-19 years in Sweden and Denmark.
This comparative study will generate new knowledge about marginalized students’ schooling experiences, student victimisation, mental health issues, discrimination processes, and how professionals may find ways to prevent these issues in Swedish and Danish schools. The results will also be important for policy makers in Sweden and Denmark, as well as professionals outside of school who meet LGBTQ+ youth in their everyday work. The research team includes researchers from both Sweden and Denmark who are among the most renowned youth researchers in the Nordic countries.
