Abstract

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) high school students face challenges that impede their academic, social, and emotional well-being. School policies that provide resources and protections for LGBT students mitigate these challenges and lead to better outcomes for LGBT students. At the same time, LGBT individuals face challenges in sectors like employment protection and hate crime prevalence, and many states have passed laws that expand protections for these adults. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between state-level, LGBT anti-discrimination policies, and high school student well-being by analyzing patterns of policy diffusion and the policies’ effects on four measures of students’ well-being: self-reported (1) experiences with bullying at school, (2) cyberbullying, (3) school absences due to feeling unsafe at school, and (4) grades. Using data from the Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System and linear regression analysis with time and state fixed effects, the results of this analysis provide evidence on the benefits of expansive civil rights legislation for LGBT individuals and the spread of its externalities to students in the U.S. schools.

摘要

女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋和跨性别 (LGBT) 高中生面临着阻碍他们的学业、社交和情感健康的挑战。为 LGBT 学生提供资源和保护的学校政策可以缓解这些挑战，并为 LGBT 学生带来更好的成绩。与此同时，LGBT 个人在就业保护和仇恨犯罪流行等领域面临挑战，许多州已通过法律扩大对这些成年人的保护。本文旨在通过分析政策扩散模式以及政策对学生幸福感的四种衡量标准的影响，来研究州级、LGBT反歧视政策与高中生幸福感之间的关系：自我报告（ 1) 在学校遭受欺凌的经历，(2) 网络欺凌，(3) 因在学校感到不安全而缺课，(4) 等级。使用来自疾病控制中心的青少年风险行为监测系统的数据和具有时间和状态固定效应的线性回归分析，该分析的结果提供了证据证明广泛的民权立法对 LGBT 个人的好处及其对学生的外部性传播在美国学校。