Greg Knotts: Greg Knotts is a PhD candidate in Education, at the University of Southern California.
“School Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Youth” was co-published simultaneously as “Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services,” Volume 7 Number 4 — and this social service theme is prevalent throughout the various texts within this collection. Harris has amassed a variety of authors addressing a variety of experiences of gay and lesbian youth in schools. The collection addresses issues of career development, identity, homophobia, and coming out at school. The foreword introduces us to the idea of the historic silences of gay and lesbian youth and the need for just this kind of scholarship to address identity issues of gay and lesbian youth. Harris herself pens a preface to the collection comparing the conceptual frameworks used within the various pieces, from conceptual analyses to case studies to qualitative studies to formal questionnaires. She reiterates the historical silence motif and asserts that this collection helps lend voice to the many experiences of gay and lesbian youth we are only now learning about in a systematic manner.
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