Social Justice Advocacy Trends Related to Gay/Straight Alliance Advisors' Experiences in Schools

149 Pages·2015·1.14 MB·English

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Counseling and Psychological Services Department of Counseling and Psychological
Dissertations Services
Spring 5-7-2011
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Emily Graybill
Georgia State University
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Graybill, Emily, "Social Justice Advocacy Trends Related to Gay/Straight Alliance Advisors' Experiences in
Schools." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1945724
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ACCEPTANCE

This dissertation, SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY TRENDS RELATED TO
GAY/STRAIGHTALLIANCE ADVISORS‟ EXPERIENCES IN SCHOOLS, by EMILY
COOK GRAYBILL, was prepared under the direction of the candidate‟s Dissertation
Advisory Committee. It is accepted by the committee members in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Education,
Georgia State University.

The Dissertation Advisory Committee and the student‟s Department Chair, as
representatives of the faculty, certify that this dissertation has met all of the excellence
and scholarship as determined by the faculty. The Dean of the College of Education
concurs.

________________________________ ___________________________
Kris Varjas, Psy.D. Joel Meyers, Ph.D.
Committee Chair Committee Member

_______________________________ _________________________
Andy Roach, Ph.D. Daphne Greenburg, Ph.D.
Committee Member Committee Member

________________________________
Date

________________________________
JoAnna White, Ed.D.
Chair, Department of Counseling and Psychological Services

________________________________
R. W. Kamphaus, Ph.D.
Dean and Distinguished Research Professor
College of Education
AUTHOR‟S STATEMENT

By presenting this dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
advanced degree from Georgia State University, I agree that the library of Georgia State
University shall make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its
regulations governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to quote, to copy
from, or to publish this dissertation may be granted by the professor under whose
direction it was written, by the College of Education‟s director of graduate studies and
research, or by me. Such quoting, copying, or publishing must be solely for scholarly
purposes and will not involve potential financial gain. It is understood that any copying
from or publication of this dissertation that involves potential financial gain will not be
allowed without my written permission.

___________________________________________________
Emily Cook Graybill
NOTICE TO BORROWERS

All dissertations deposited in the Georgia State University library must be used in
accordance with the stipulations prescribed by the author in the preceding statement. The
author of this dissertation is:

Emily Cook Graybill
892 Verdi Way
Clarkston, GA 30021

The director of this dissertation is:

Dr. Kris Varjas
Department of Counseling and Psychological Services
College of Education
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA 3030-3980
VITA

Emily Cook Graybill

ADDRESS: 892 Verdi Way
Clarkston, Georgia 30021

EDUCATION:

Ph.D. 2011 Georgia State University
School Psychology
Ed.S. 2006 Georgia State University
School Psychology
M.Ed. 2005 Georgia State University
School Psychology
B.A. 2002 Agnes Scott College
Psychology
A.A. 2000 Heartland Community College

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

2007-Present Preschool Psychologist
DeKalb County School System
2009-2010 School Psychology Predoctoral Intern
Metro Atlanta Collaborative
2005-2009 Contract School Psychologist
DeKalb County School System
Clayton County School System
Atlanta Public School System
2006-2008 Consultant/Graduate Assistant
Metropolitan Regional Educational Service Agency
2005-2006 School Psychology Intern
DeKalb County School System
2004-2004 School Psychology Practicum Student
City Schools of Decatur
2004-2010 Graduate Research Assistant
Georgia State University

PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS:

Meyers, B., Graybill, E., & Grogg, K. (Submitted) Cross-disciplinary training: Educators
collaborate on simulated prereferral intervention teams. Journal of Educational
and Psychological Consultation.
Meyers, A.B., Meyers, J.,. Graybill, E.C., Proctor, S.L., & Huddleston, L. (submitted).
Ecological Approaches to Organizational Consultation and Systems Change in
Educational Settings. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation.

Watson, L., Varjas, K., Meyers, J. & Graybill, E. (2010). Gay-straight alliance advisors:
Negotiating multiple ecological systems when advocating for LGBTQ youth.
Journal of LGBT Youth, 7, 100-128.

Smith, H., Varjas, K., Meyers, J., Marshall, M., Ruffner, C., & Graybill, E. (2010).
Teachers‟ perceptions of teasing in schools. Journal of School Violence, 9, 2-22.

Graybill, E., Morillas, C., Gibbons, C., Varjas, K. & Meyers, J. (2010, March). Advocacy
for LGBT youth in schools: A survey study. Poster presented at the National
Association of School Psychologists 2010 Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.

Varjas, K., Meyers, J., Graybill, E., & Huddleston, L. (2010, March). Preparing school
psychologists to advocate for LGBT students. Mini-skills workshop presented at
the National Association of School Psychologists 2010 Annual Convention,
Chicago, IL.

Graybill, E., Varjas, K., Meyers, J., & Watson, L. (2009). Content-specific strategies to
advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: An exploratory study.
School Psychology Review, 38, 570-584.

PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS:

2008-Present National Association for Multicultural Education
Student Member
2004-Present Student Affiliates of School Psychology
Georgia State University Chapter
2003-Present National Association of School Psychologists
Student Member
ABSTRACT

SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY TRENDS RELATED TO
GAY/STRAIGHTALLIANCE ADVISORS‟
EXPERIENCES IN SCHOOLS
by
Emily Cook Graybill

Social justice within education increasingly has been emphasized over the past
decade (Kraft, 2007; Oakes et al., 2000; Riester et al., 2002). Little is known about the
demographic trends and the advocacy experiences of school-based social justice
advocates such as Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) advisors despite the established
importance of teachers engaging in social justice advocacy within schools. Data were
collected from a national sample (N = 262) of GSA advisors to further the understanding
of the demographic characteristics and the experiences of these social justice advocates
and to investigate the relationships between these variables. An ethnographic survey
(Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte, 1999) was utilized for data collection in which the
language and experiences reported by GSA advisors (Graybill et al., 2009; Watson et al.,
2010) were incorporated. Using an ecological model established in a previous study with
GSA advisors (Watson et al., 2010), the individual-, school-, and sociocultural-level
characteristics that affect advisors were examined. The results suggested that this sample
of GSA advisors was a demographically homogenous group with 67.3% female, 85.7%
White, 72.2% who voted Democrat, and 77.1% who were educated at the Master‟s level
or higher. Exploratory factor analysis identified two dimensions (i.e., Barriers,
Facilitators) by which the advisors appeared to define their experiences when advocating
for LGBT youth. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that at the individual level,
experiencing negative personal and professional consequences to advocating and the
level of self-perceived preparedness to advocate based on prior training contributed to the
variability in the advisors‟ experiences with social justice advocacy. At the sociocultural
level, advisors in rural schools reported more barriers and fewer facilitators to
advocating. Overall, all seven predictors entered, including those at the individual (i.e.,
experiencing negative personal or professional consequences to advocating, level of self-
perceived preparedness to advocate), school (i.e., school resources, school size), and
sociocultural levels (i.e., region of the country, community type), accounted for 33.0% (p
< .05) of the variance in the Barriers and 10.6% (p < .05) of the variance in the
Facilitators to advocating for LGBT youth in schools.
SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY TRENDS RELATED TO
GAY/STRAIGHTALLIANCE ADVISORS‟
EXPERIENCES IN SCHOOLS
by
Emily Cook Graybill

A Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the
Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
School Psychology
in
the Department of Counseling and Psychological Services
in
the College of Education
Georgia State University

Atlanta, GA
2011
Copyright by
Emily Cook Graybill
2011