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Students Benefit from Instructor Revealing LGBTQ+ Identity in an Upper‐level Physiology Course
Author(s) -
Busch Carly,
Supriya K.,
Brownell Sara,
Cooper Katelyn
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.01548
Subject(s) - transgender , lesbian , mentorship , feeling , psychology , identity (music) , sense of community , queer , social connectedness , sexual identity , social psychology , medical education , sociology , gender studies , human sexuality , medicine , psychoanalysis , physics , acoustics
Sharing personal information has been recognized as an effective way for instructors to build relationships with their students and foster a sense of community in their courses. Revealing personal identities may be particularly impactful for students with concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs), defined as identities that can be kept hidden or invisible and that carry negative stereotypes, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) students. Students with CSIs often struggle to find similar others in science, which can negatively affect their sense of belonging. Previous studies have assessed the factors leading to LGBTQ+ instructors or students revealing their identity in the classroom, but we know of no studies that have looked at the impact of an instructor revealing their LGBTQ+ identity on students. We hypothesized that LGBTQ+ students would benefit from the instructor revealing a shared identity. In this study, the instructor revealed that she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community using a single PowerPoint slide and taking 3 seconds to describe that she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community in the same course in two separate years. At the end of the semester we surveyed the 580 students in the two iterations of the course to assess to what extent the instructor revealing her LGTBQ+ identity impacted students’ (1) willingness to approach the instructor for mentorship, (2) feelings of connectedness with the instructor, (3) confidence in their ability to pursue a career in science, (4) sense of belonging in the course, and (5) sense of belonging within the scientific community. Using a linear regression and controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, history of anxiety and depression, and year of enrollment, LGBTQ+ students reported greater gains in each of these outcomes compared with their non‐LGBTQ+ peers. Notably, we found that the majority of students, both LGBTQ+ and non‐LGBTQ+, in the course agreed that the instructor revealing her LGBTQ+ identity significantly increased their willingness to approach for mentorship, feelings of connectedness, and sense of belonging in the class and scientific community. Further, our results indicate that LGBTQ+ students in particular are positively impacted across all five outcomes by instructors revealing their LGBTQ+ identities, and that revealing this information enhances the relationship between the instructor and most students in the class. This study is the first to demonstrate an impact of instructor LGBTQ+ identity on students, which supports the assertion that a brief intervention could have far reaching potential effects on students.