Factors influencing allies’ roles within schools: knowledge, attitudes, and barriers

Abstract

The current study sought to examine factors influencing LGBTQ allies’ roles within middle and high schools. This was an expansion upon Swanson and Gettinger’s (2016) study by using their Providing Services & Supports for LGBT Youth: Teacher Assessment Survey to further examine LGBTQ-supportive school staff, or allies. First, the association between demographic characteristics and allyship was investigated. Then, since this measure has not been used much in research and is one of the only tools available to survey this population of allies to LGBTQ youth, the validity and reliability of the measure were assessed. Lastly, a path analysis was used to determine the relationship between the subscales of the Providing Services & Supports for LGBT Youth: Teacher Assessment Survey, specifically knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and barriers. Briefly, it was hypothesized that certain demographics would be associated with a higher degree of allyship, the Providing Services & Supports for LGBT Youth: Teacher Assessment Survey would be supported as a valid and reliable measure to be used in future research, and there would be relationships between knowledge and behaviors, and attitudes and behaviors, with both relationships being mediated by barriers. Results indicated limited support for the predictability of demographic characteristics on allyship. Additionally, results from the current sample indicated poor reliability and validity support for this measure, particularly with the knowledge and attitudes scales, likely suggesting these constructs are not measured appropriately by the items that make up each scale. Lastly, knowledge was not found to be a significant predictor of behaviors, whereas attitudes was found to be a significant predictor of behaviors. These relationships were both mediated by barriers.