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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Aug 8.
Published in final edited form as: J Res Adolesc. 2021 Feb 18;32(1):325–336. doi: 10.1111/jora.12607

School climate perceptions at the intersection of sex, grade, sexual, and gender identity

Salvatore Ioverno 1, Stephen T Russell 2
PMCID: PMC10409593  NIHMSID: NIHMS1913744  PMID: 33600066

Abstract

School climate is an important construct in research on adolescents. Yet, no known studies have evaluated whether the measured school climate constructs are equivalent across lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ), and heterosexual students as well as sex and grade levels. This study assessed measurement equivalence of a second-order school climate construct across 1) sexual identity and sex among cisgender adolescents and 2) sexual and gender identity and grade level among cisgender and transgender adolescents. Data come from a California statewide survey of middle and high school students. Measurement equivalence was supported. This study reinforces prior findings on sexual and gender minority disparities and sheds light on an interesting pattern of school experiences across grades that deserves further investigation.

INTRODUCTION

For decades, the school climate has been an important construct in research on adolescents and schooling. Referring to the quality and character of life at school (Cohen, Mccabe, & Michelli, 2009), hundreds of studies document the association of students’ perceptions of a positive school climate with their wellbeing and achievement (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013). School climate has been described as a function of multiple dimensions including relationships with peers or adults at school, engagement in school activities, and perceptions of safety (Cohen et al., 2009). Given its multidimensional nature, there has been recent interest in documenting the equivalence of school climate measures across grade levels (Waasdorp, Johnson, Shukla, & Bradshaw, 2020) and student characteristics including sex and ethnicity (Bradshaw, Waasdorp, & Johnson, 2015). The existing evidence suggests that measures of school climate are robust across groups. However, there are no known studies of the measurement properties of school climate that focus on sexual or gender identity. Yet, research has shown that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) youth tend to report more negative or hostile school climates as a consequence of discrimination and prejudice (Day, Ioverno, & Russell, 2019; Ioverno & Russell, 2020). Moreover, a robust body of research has documented that LGBTQ students in negative school climates are more likely to report anxiety, depression, suicidality, and drug use (Birkett, Espelage, & Koenig, 2009; Colvin, Egan, & Coulter, 2019) and to experience homophobic victimization (Birkett et al., 2009; Ioverno & Russell, 2020). Over the past decades, a growing number of scholars have studied LGBTQ students’ school climate focusing on the identification of school strategies and practices designed to reduce school climate disparities based on sexual orientation and gender identity (see Russell & Horn, 2016 and Russell, Kosciw, Horn, & Saewyc, 2010 for a review). Most of these studies showed that a positive school climate for LGBTQ students is associated with the presence of enumerated school nondiscrimination and antibullying policies, teacher professional development to address LGBTQ issues, LGBTQ-inclusive curricula, and the presence of Gay-Straight Alliances (or Genders and Sexualities Alliances, GSAs) (Russell & Horn, 2016; Russell et al., 2010). Similar findings were documented on perceived safety, one of the most commonly studied dimensions of school climate in research on LGBTQ students (Ioverno, Belser, Baiocco, Grossman, & Russell, 2016; Kosciw, Greytak, Zoningrone, Clark, & Truong, 2018; Russell, Day, Ioverno, & Toomey, 2016). Among other school climate dimensions, studies have reported that high levels of school connectedness among LGBTQ students were associated with improved mental health (De Pedro, Esqueda, & Gilreath, 2017; Heck, Lindquist, Machek, & Cochran, 2014; Whitaker, Shapiro, & Shields, 2016), and less school victimization (Heck et al., 2014). Similarly, some studies showed that having supportive adults available at school is associated with improved school performances (Greytak, Kosciw, & Boesen, 2013; Kosciw, Palmer, Kull, & Greytak, 2013; Russell, Seif, & Truong, 2001; Seelman, Walls, Hazel, & Wisneski, 2012) and fewer health risk behaviors for LGBTQ students (De Pedro et al., 2017; Goodenow, Szalacha, & Westheimer, 2006). Finally, there is some evidence that meaningful participation at school was associated with positive academic outcomes for LGBTQ students (Seelman et al., 2012, 2015).

Understanding the measurement of school climate for LGBTQ students is important for several reasons. First, measurement invariance is an important property for any research measure used to compare groups that differ on a set of conditions (e.g., sex, grade, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.). In fact, the presence or absence of mean differences in observed scores of a scale is not indicative of mean differences in the latent construct being assessed. In order to compare respondents of different groups on the same construct, researchers should first make sure that the respondents interpret the questions of a scale in a conceptually similar manner and that there are no subgroup differences in the ways respondents think about a construct. For example, some aspects of school climate may be more salient for LGBTQ students compared to their heterosexual, cisgender peers: school safety, a core component of school climate, has been a key construct in studies of LGBTQ students (Kull, Greytak, Kosciw, & Villenas, 2016). It is possible that measurement noninvariance on school climate across sexual and gender identities could indicate that safety is a stronger component of school climate in LGBTQ students than in heterosexual and cisgender students. In this scenario, interpreting mean differences could be misleading. It is then crucial to examine whether test scores have equivalent meanings across sexual and gender identities as a prerequisite for meaningful comparisons; if measures of school climate are not invariant, estimates of comparisons from prior studies may be biased. Second, the experience of school climate varies not only across sexual and gender identity but also sex and grade level, and thus, attention to the equivalence of measures based on sexual and gender identity is consistent with the body of research on measurement equivalence across sex and grade levels (Waasdorp et al., 2020). Finally, school climate experiences may substantially vary across the different combinations of sexual and gender identities. It is crucial to shed light on the experiences of sexual and gender minority students who have been understudied in research such as cisgender questioning students and transgender LGB and questioning students.

To fill these gaps, this study assessed measurement invariance of a second-order school climate construct used in the California Healthy Kids Survey. This questionnaire has been administered for almost two decades to analyze the students’ experience in California middle and high schools. Specifically, this study assessed measurement invariance across 1) sexual identity and sex and 2) sexual and gender identity and grade level. After establishing measurement invariance, we explored sex and grade differences in school climate across sexual and gender identities.

METHOD

Participants and procedure

The 2015–2017 California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) is a statewide cross-sectional survey of middle and high school 7th, 9th, and 11th-grade classrooms administered biennially by WestEd with support from the California Department of Education (Austin, Bates, & Duerr, 2015). The analytic sample (n = 834,428) excluded: (1) any grade not included in middle and high schools in California (0.34%); (2) nonvalid responses based on meeting two or more criteria related to inconsistent or exaggerated responses, or answering dishonestly to all or most of the questions on the survey (1.28%; Austin et al., 2015); and (3) schools that excluded questions on sexual or gender identity from survey administration (18.78% of students). The demographic composition is shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1.

Descriptive statistics across sexual orientation and gender identity

Cisgender students
Transgender students
Heterosexual
N = 703,041
N (%) 		LGB
N = 53,188
N (%) 		Questioning
N = 66,467
N (%) 		Heterosexual
N = 622
N (%) 		LGB
N = 3,704
N (%) 		Questioning
N = 4,891
N (%)
Sex
 Female 329,421 (48.08%) 45,103 (69.62%) 33,424 (56.36%)
 Male 355,695 (51.92%) 19,681 (30.38%) 25,880 (43.64%)
Grade
 6th–8th 218,063 (31.11%) 11,380 (21.47%) 34,669 (52.33%) 213 (34.47%) 954 (25.85%) 1,058 (21.79%)
 9th–10th 250,952 (35.8%) 20,535 (38.75%) 18,834 (28.43%) 219 (35.44%) 1,490 (40.37%) 1,952 (40.21%)
 11th–12th 232,024 (33.1%) 21,081 (39.78%) 12,751 (19.25%) 186 (30.1%) 1,247 (33.78%) 1,845 (38%)
Race
 American Indian/Alaskan Native 24,714 (3.52%) 1,980 (3.72%) 2,712 (4.08%) 33 (5.31%) 128 (3.46%) 136 (2.78%)
 Asian 74,752 (10.63%) 4,138 (7.78%) 10,045 (15.11%) 47 (7.56%) 303 (8.18%) 541 (11.06%)
 African American 32,466 (4.62%) 2,961 (5.57%) 2,731 (4.11%) 39 (6.27%) 182 (4.91%) 334 (6.83%)
 Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 12,365 (1.76%) 957 (1.8%) 1,023 (1.54%) 13 (2.09%) 71 (1.92%) 145 (2.96%)
 White 20,9,20 (29.15%) 15,348 (28.86%) 18,110 (27.25%) 165 (26.53%) 1,353 (36.53%) 1,562 (31.94%)
 Multiple 270,410 (38.46%) 22,150 (41.64%) 25,906 (38.98%) 265 (42.6%) 1,447 (39.07%) 1,794 (36.68%)
 No race reported 83,414 (11.86%) 5,654 (10.63%) 5,940 (8.94%) 60 (9.65%) 220 (5.94%) 379 (7.75%)
Ethnicity
 Hispanic 334,338 (48.24%) 25,301 (48.32%) 35,032 (54.16%) 278 (45.87%) 2103 (57.66%) 2596 (54.39%)
 Non-Hispanic 358,713 (51.76%) 27,065 (51.68%) 29,654 (45.84%) 328 (54.13%) 1544 (42.34%) 2177 (45.61%)
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Note. Transgender youth are not categorized by sex because it cannot be known whether transgender students responded to the question for sex based on their sex assigned at birth or current gender identity. Because the surveys were administered in 7th, 9th, and 11th-grade classrooms, students were grouped for grades 6th-8th, 9th/10th, and 11th/ 12th.

Measures

School climate.

The CHKS school climate measure (Hanson, 2012) included fifteen indicators that measured four first-order concepts: caring relationships with adults (6 items; an example item is “At my school, there is a teacher or some other adult who listens to me when I have something to say”; Cronbach’s α = .90), perceived school safety (2 items; an example item is “I feel safe in my school”; Cronbach’s α = .74), meaningful participation (3 items; an example item is “At my school, I do interesting activities”; Cronbach’s α = .78), and school connectedness (4 items; an example item is “I feel like I am part of this school”; Cronbach’s α = .81). Response options ranged from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) for school connectedness and the first item of school safety, and from 0 (not at all true) to 3 (very true) for caring relationships with adults, and students’ meaningful participation. The remaining safety item had five response options ranging from “Very safe” to “Very unsafe.” Consistent with recent studies (Day et al., 2019), the mean for the second-order school climate construct was calculated from the standardized z-score of each of the items.

Sexual and gender identity.

For sexual and gender identity, a single item included the following categories: “heterosexual,” “lesbian, gay, bisexual,” “transgender,” “unsure,” “decline to respond.” Participants were asked to mark all the categories that apply. Students who marked “decline to respond” were excluded (8.64%). Because of many possible combinations, we established criteria for a categorical measure of students’ sexual and gender identity. First, students who marked “transgender” were categorized as transgender, whereas students who did not mark it were categorized as cisgender. Second, students who marked “lesbian, gay, bisexual” were categorized as LGB. Third, students who marked “not sure” but not “lesbian, gay, bisexual” were categorized as questioning. Finally, those who only marked “heterosexual” for their sexual orientation were categorized as heterosexual. Based on these categorizations, six groups were created, which we refer to as “cisgender heterosexual,” “cisgender LGB,” “cisgender questioning,” “transgender heterosexual,” “transgender LGB,” and “transgender questioning.”

Sex.

Based on the answers to the question “What is your sex?” (0 = female, 1 = male), participants were grouped into females and males. Transgender youth were not categorized by sex because it cannot be known whether transgender students responded to the question for sex based on their sex assigned at birth or current gender identity.

School grade.

Participants were asked to indicate their grade in school. The surveys were administered in 7th, 9th, and 11th-grade classrooms, some of which included students in other grades. The measure grouped students in grades 6th-8th, 9th-10th, and 11th-12th.

Analysis plan

First, confirmatory factor analysis was tested for the second-order school climate construct using maximum likelihood estimation in Mplus 8 (Muthen & Muthen, 2017). Model fit was assessed by the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and the Tucker–Lewis index higher than .90, a Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMSR) lower than .10, and a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) lower than .08 (Kline, 2011). Then, we ran two invariance-testing procedures for the school climate measure (see Table 2). We first tested measurement invariance across sexual orientation, and sex comparing six groups: Heterosexual male and female, LGB male and female, and questioning male and female students. For these first analyses, transgender students were not included because the CHKS lacks a clear assessment of sex for transgender students: It cannot be known whether transgender students responding to the question for sex were referring to their sex assigned at birth or current gender identity. Then, we tested measurement invariance across sexual orientation, gender identity, and school grade comparing eighteen groups resulted from a combination of sexual orientation groups (heterosexual, LGB, questioning), gender identity groups (cisgender and transgender), and the three grade groups (6th-8th, 9th-10th, 11th-12th). For each procedure, we tested different levels of measurement invariance in multiple group second-order factor models (Rudnev, Lytkina, Davidov, Schmidt, & Zick, 2018). Specifically, we evaluated whether the basic model structure (configural model), the factor loadings on the first-order (metric 1st order) and the second-order constructs (metric 2nd order), the item intercepts (scalar 1st order) and the first-order construct intercepts (scalar 2nd order) were invariant. A ΔCFI ≥ −.010, supplemented by ΔRMSEA ≥ .015, would be indicative of noninvariance (Chen, 2007). Finally, if results indicated measurement invariance for the measure of school climate, possible differences across groups were then examined.

Table 2.

Model comparisons testing the measurement invariance across sexual identity, gender identity, and sex

χ2 df TLI RMSEA RMSEA 90% CI SRMR CFI Δ RMSEA Δ CFI
Sexual identity
Sex invariancea
 1. Configural 263208.353 516 0.945 0.062 [0.062, 0.062] 0.061 0.955
 2. Metric 1st order 265488.265 571 0.950 0.059 [0.059, 0.059] 0.061 0.955 0.003 0.000
 3. Metric 2nd order 266881.975 586 0.951 0.058 [0.058, 0.059] 0.062 0.955 0.001 0.000
 4. Scalar 1st order 278693.583 641 0.953 0.057 [0.057, 0.057] 0.062 0.953 0.002 0.002
 5. Scalar 2nd order 281480.424 656 0.954 0.057 [0.056, 0.057] 0.063 0.948 0.000 0.001
Sexual/Gender identity
Grade invarianceb
 1. Configural 226855.295 1548 0.940 0.056 [0.056, 0.056] .062 0.951
 2. Metric 1st order 238205.766 1735 0.944 0.054 [0.054, 0.055] 0.064 0.949 0.002 0.002
 3. Metric 2nd order 240915.258 1786 0.945 0.054 [0.054, 0.054] 0.065 0.948 0.000 0.001
 4. Scalar 1st order 266692.050 1973 0.945 0.054 [0.054, 0.054] 0.066 0.943 0.000 0.005
 5. Scalar 2nd order 277165.063 2024 0.944 0.054 [0.054, 0.054] 0.067 0.940 0.000 0.003
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Abbreviations: CFI, comparative fit index; CI, confidence interval; RMSEA, mean error of approximation; SRMR, standardized root mean square residual; TLI, Tucker-Lewis index; Δ CFI, change in CFI value compared to the CFI value of the previous model.

a

Seven groups: Heterosexual male and female, LGB male and female, questioning male and female, and transgender.

b

Twelve groups: sexual/gender identity groups(heterosexual, LGB, questioning, transgender) by 3 grade groups.

RESULTS

Figure 1 displays a confirmatory factor analysis of the second-order school climate construct. The second-order factor model presents a better fit (CFI > .90, SRMSR < .10, RMSEA < .08; Kline, 2011) compared to a first-order model (CFI = 0.699, SRMSR = 0.10, RMSEA = 0.136).

FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 1

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Standardized Solution of the Second-order Model of School Climate. Note: All factor loadings are significant at p < .001. χ2(86, N = 741,880) = 192681.526, p < .001, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.055 (90% confidence intervals = 0.055, 0.055), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.95, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 943, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.06

The two invariance-testing procedures for the school climate measure are presented in Table 2. We first tested measurement invariance across sexual identity and sex only among cisgender students. As mentioned above, for these first analyses, transgender students were not included because the CHKS lacks a clear assessment of sex for transgender students. Then, we tested measurement invariance across sexual identity, gender identity, and school grade including both cisgender and transgender students. For both procedures, results indicated configural, first- and second-order metric and scalar invariance. With measurement invariance established, potential differences across groups were examined. Sex differences across sexual identities were significant, F (5, 801649) = 153.50, p < .001. Figure 2 shows that LGB females reported the most negative school climate, followed by LGB males, questioning females and males, heterosexual males, and heterosexual females. Similar results were found on the subscale mean differences with some exceptions on the Caring Adults, and Meaningful Participation scores (see Appendix 1). Like on the second-order school climate scores, LGB females reported the lowest scores on Caring Adults and heterosexual females reported the highest scores. However, the remaining groups did not significantly differ from each other. Regarding Meaningful Participation, LGB females reported again the lowest scores, whereas both heterosexual females and questioning males reported the highest scores. The differences between the remaining groups were minimal.

FIGURE 2.

FIGURE 2

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Mean Differences across Sexual Identity and Sex. Note: F(5, 801649) = 155.31, p < .001. The mean for school climate was calculated from the standardized z-score of each of the items

Also grade differences across sexual and gender identities were significant, F (17, 829304) = 98.90, p < .001. Figure 3 shows that in grades 6–8, transgender students with an LGB or questioning identity reported the most negative school climate, followed by cisgender LGB and transgender heterosexual students, then cisgender questioning students, and finally cisgender heterosexual students. Similar results were found in grades 9–11 except that transgender heterosexual students did not significantly differ from cisgender LGB, transgender LGB, and transgender questioning students. Like in middle school, in grades 11–12, cisgender heterosexual students reported the most positive levels of school climate whereas transgender LGB and questioning students reported the most negative levels. However, transgender heterosexual students did not significantly differ from cisgender LGB and questioning students. Moreover, cisgender questioning students reported a more negative school climate than cisgender LGB students.

FIGURE 3.

FIGURE 3

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Mean Differences across Sexual/Gender Identity and Grade. Note: F(17, 829304) = 920.96 , p < .001. The mean for school climate was calculated from the standardized z-score of each of the items. Mean differences were computed using multilevel analyses with robust standard errors to account for the nested structure of the data (students nested in schools) and the large sample size. Because the surveys were mostly administered in 7th, 9th, and 11th-grade classrooms, students were grouped for grades 6th-8th, 9th/10th, and 11th/12th

Notably, among cisgender students with a heterosexual or questioning identity, youth reported more negative school climates from grades 9 to 12 compared to grades 6–8. Further, cisgender LGB students in grades 11–12 reported more positive school climates compared to LGB students in the other grades. Contrary to the other groups, all transgender students reported similar levels of school climate across grades.

The patterns of the subscale scores were similar to those of the second-order school climate scores (see Appendix 2). Here, we report some notable significant differences. Within cisgender LGB youth, the oldest students reported the highest levels of School Safety, followed by students from grades 9–10, and students from 6 to 8. On the contrary, cisgender questioning students from grades 11–12 reported significantly lower levels of School Safety compared to cisgender students in grades 6–8. Although cisgender questioning students felt significantly safer in grades 6–8 compared to LGB students in the same grades, in the last years of high schools their School Safety scores were not significantly different. Across grades, no differences were found within transgender LGB and questioning students on all subscales except for Caring Adults scores that were higher in grades 11–12 compared to grades 9–10. Cisgender LGB students in grades 11–12 reported higher Caring Adults scores compared to cisgender LGB students in other grades. Yet among cisgender students with a heterosexual or questioning identity, the Caring Adults scores were the lowest in grades 11–12 and did not significantly differ from cisgender LGB students’ scores. The School Connectedness scores followed the same pattern of the second-order school climate scores for all groups except for cisgender LGB students who reported similar levels across grades. Finally, in grades 11–12, no significant differences were found on Meaningful Participation among cisgender students with a heterosexual, LGB, or questioning identity, and transgender students with a heterosexual and questioning identity, whereas transgender LGB students reported the lowest scores.

DISCUSSION

This research provided strong evidence that this multidimensional measure of school climate is invariant across sex for different sexual identities and across grades for different sexual and gender identities: Scores of school climate and the associated subdimensions can be compared meaningfully across these groups. This finding affirms the results of multiple studies that compare these groups using a multidimensional construct of school climate (Day et al., 2019; Ioverno & Russell, 2020). Further, results reinforce many prior studies that document negative perceptions of school climate among LGBTQ students. In fact, although previous studies on LGBTQ students using the CHKS measure of school climate demonstrated that the scale had good reliability (Baams & Russell, 2020; Day, Fish, Perez-Brumer, Hatzenbuehler, & Russell, 2017; Day et al., 2019; Ioverno & Russell, 2020), none explicitly reported on the validity of its application to LGBTQ samples.

The first-order factor loadings suggest that this school climate model puts particular emphasis on experiences of school connectedness and perceived safety. Although it is important to have a comprehensive measure of school climate, future studies should take into consideration that meaningful participation represents a minor aspect of the CHKS model of school climate. Based on the high reliability and adequateness of the number of items, future studies that are interested in specific dimensions of school climate might treat the Caring Adults and School Connectedness subscales independently.

Mean comparison results confirm prior reports showing that transgender and LGB students rated their school climate most negatively (Day et al., 2019). However, our findings shed light on the understudied experiences of cisgender questioning students and transgender LGB and questioning students. In this study, cisgender questioning students perceived their school climate more positively than cisgender LGB and all transgender students and more negatively than cisgender heterosexual students. Notably, cisgender questioning students did not substantially differ from cisgender LGB and transgender heterosexual students in 11th −12th grades. Similar patterns were found in the subscale dimensions. One possible explanation is that compared to adolescents from earlier developmental stages, late adolescents face sexual developmental challenges associated with the social and cultural context of high schools (Sharpe, 2003) and they may experience more pressures to conform to hegemonic forms of sexuality (heterosexual) and gender identity (cisgender). Thus, cisgender questioning students, similarly to LGB and transgender students, may experience feelings of difference and stigma that, in turn, may negatively affect their perception of the school climate. Yet, our results differ from previous studies showing that cisgender questioning students reported more negative school climates compared to both cisgender LGB and heterosexual students (Birkett et al., 2009; Espelage, Aragon, Birkett, & Koenig, 2008). We can only speculate whether this inconsistency may be due to a cohort effect (the previous studies cited here used data from 2005), or to a different operationalization of the school climate construct. Future research may clarify why differences occur for cisgender questioning youth in comparison to the other sexual and gender identity groups.

Notably, the present study also suggested that transgender LGB and questioning students were at greatest risk of hostile school climates compared to the other groups. This greater disparity is likely due to a situation of multi-minority status (being a sexual and a gender minority) that may amplify students’ vulnerability to negative school experiences. Overall, transgender LGB and questioning students tended to report similar school climate experiences across grades. However, an analysis of the first-order construct means showed that the presence of caring adults at school was more prominent in the last years of high school. A similar trend was identified among cisgender LGB and questioning students. Adults at school may feel more comfortable addressing students’ sexual identity issues as students get older (Ferfolja & Robinson, 2004) making their support more prominent for both cisgender and transgender LGBQ students. However, the scores for caring adults among transgender heterosexual students were similar across grades, suggesting that perceived support from adults was more evident for sexual minority students than gender minority students. This result is consistent with a prior study that showed that school personnel often lack clear policy and institutional guidance on supporting transgender students (McGuire, Anderson, Toomey, & Russell, 2010).

The results point to several important differences based on grade level. Across grades, ratings of the school climate are markedly lower for students in the first years of high school (grades 9–10) for cisgender heterosexual and questioning students. This is consistent with studies that document more positive perceptions of school climate for middle schoolers (Waasdorp et al., 2020), and negative correlates of the high school transition (Benner, Boyle, & Bakhtiari, 2017). Yet, although cisgender LGB students reported more negative school climates in grades 6 to 11 compared to cisgender questioning and heterosexual students, it is noticeable in their last years of high school they had positive perceptions of school climate compared to the years in the middle school and the beginning of high school. This is congruent with other studies documenting the highest levels of homophobia in younger grades (Poteat & Russell, 2013). The same pattern is reflected in the majority of the school climate subdimensions suggesting that a less hostile school climate for cisgender LGB students in the last years of high school is probably due to perceptions by older students of more safety, caring adults, and opportunities for meaningful participation at school.

There are several limitations. First, the data presented here are cross-sectional and should not be interpreted as representing change over time. Second, the CHKS included a single question with multiple response options lacking a clearer assessment of transgender status and obscuring the complexities and intersections of sex and gender identity. Third, it was not clear whether the response category “not sure” referred to students’ sexual orientation or gender identity. The “transgender questioning” and “cisgender questioning” categories may include gender questioning students who may be on a trajectory toward a transgender identity or may later identify as gender nonbinary or cisgender. Although the findings in this study showed a crucial difference between cisgender and transgender students who were questioning their identities, future studies should seek to better determine whether there are further differences between questioning one’s gender identity or one’s sexual identity.

In summary, this study reports strong evidence that this multidimensional measure of school climate is robust and comparable across sex for different sexual identities, and across grades for different sexual and gender identities. Results reinforce many prior studies documenting school climate disparities for LGBTQ students. However, as critical differences were found at the intersection of sex, grade, sexual, and gender identity, this research highlights the need for adopting an intersectional framework for a better understanding of LGBTQ school disparities. Moreover, this research raises important questions: Why does the quality of the school climate vary across grades? What is the impact of transitioning to high school? Why do cisgender LGB students face a less hostile school climate in the last years of high school? Why do transgender LGB and questioning students consistently report negative school climate across grades? The answers to these questions may help identify the specific needs of LGBTQ students across grades, as well as policies and practices to support a more positive and inclusive school climate for all students.

APPENDIX 1.

SEX DIFFERENCES ACROSS SEXUAL IDENTITIES AMONG CISGENDER STUDENTS

School climate M (SD) School connectedness M (SD) Caring Adults M (SD) Meaningful Participation M (SD) School safety M (SD)
Heterosexual
 Female 0.04 (0.64) 0.03 (0.76) 0.05 (0.80) 0.02 (0.84)b 0.04 (0.84)
 Male 0.03 (0.64) 0.06 (0.78) 0.01 (0.80)a 0.00 (0.83) 0.05 (0.90)
LGB
 Female −0.21 (0.65) −0.28 (0.78) −0.16 (0.86) −0.18 (0.81) −0.30 (0.90)
 Male −0.10 (0.68) −0.13 (0.85) −0.07 (0.86)a −0.05 (0.87)a −0.21 (1.00)
Questioning
 Female 0.00 (0.64) −0.01 (0.77) 0.01 (0.81)a 0.00 (0.82)a −0.01 (0.89)
 Male 0.02 (0.64) 0.02 (0.82) 0.00 (0.79)a 0.07 (0.82)b 0.01 (0.97)
F 153.50*** 79.68*** 120.52*** 168.93*** 19.53***
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Note. Mean differences were computed using multilevel analyses with robust standard errors to account for the nested structure of the data (students nested in schools) and the large sample size. Values followed by the same subscripts are not significantly different. Bonferroni corrections were applied to the pairwise comparisons.

***

p < .001.

APPENDIX 2.

GRADE DIFFERENCES ACROSS SEXUAL AND GENDER IDENTITIES

Identity School climate M (SD) School connectedness M (SD) Caring Adults M (SD) Meaningful Participation M (SD) School safety M (SD)
Cisgender
 Heterosexual
  6th–8th 0.14 (0.63) 0.18 (0.75) 0.14 (0.77)g 0.11 (0.82)f 0.12 (0.90)i
  9th–10th −0.02 (0.63)f 0.03 (0.76)d −0.05 (0.81)f −0.04 (0.82)e 0.0 (0.85)h
  11th–12th −0.02 (0.64)f −0.07 (0.78)c 0.01 (0.83)f −0.03 (0.86)e 0.02 (0.85)hi
 LGB
  6th-8th −0.18 (0.67)d −0.19 (0.82)b −0.15 (0.84)d −0.13 (0.81)cd −0.35 (1.01)e
  9th – 10th −0.24 (0.65)d −0.25 (0.8)b −0.22 (0.86)d −0.20 (0.80)bc −0.32 (0.91)f
  11th-12th −0.13 (0.67)f −0.27 (0.81)b −0.04 (0.88)f −0.11 (0.86)de −0.19 (0.89)g
 Questioning
  6th-8th 0.11 (0.62) 0.12 (0.77)d 0.11 (0.76)f 0.13 (0.81)f 0.09 (0.93)h
  9th-10th −0.14 (0.63)e −0.13 (0.78)bc −0.17 (0.81)d −0.11 (0.81)cd −0.15 (0.89)gh
  11th–12th −0.15 (0.65)e −0.24 (0.8)b −0.11 (0.85)e −0.10 (0.84)de −0.16 (0.92)g
Transgender
 Heterosexual
  6th-8th −0.06 (0.69)def −0.10 (0.91)bcd − 0.10 (0.86)cdef 0.07 (0.88)def −0.09 (1.10)efghi
  9th-10th −0.32 (0.71)abcde −0.32 (0.89)ab −0.30 (0.92)abcde −0.21 (0.85)abcde −0.40 (1.05)defg
  11th-12th −0.16 (0.70)cdef −0.29 (0.89)abc −0.11 (0.91)cdefg −0.03 (0.91)bcdef −0.26 (1.02)efgh
 LGB
  6th-8th −0.41 (0.74)a −0.46 (0.9)a −0.37 (0.93)ab −0.21 (0.85)abc −0.76 (1.14)a
  9th-10th −0.44 (0.71)a −0.47 (0.89)a −0.43 (0.91)ab −0.27 (0.84)a −0.71 (1.09)ab
  11th-12th −0.34 (0.73)ab −0.46 (0.89)a −0.23 (0.95)cd −0.23 (0.82)ab −0.56 (1.09)bcd
 Questioning
  6th-8th −0.37 (0.80)ab −0.39 (0.98)a −0.38 (0.97)ab −0.17 (0.86)abcd −0.58 (1.19)abc
  9th-10th −0.41 (0.77)ab −0.40 (0.97)a −0.46 (0.94)a −0.16 (0.88)bcd −0.61 (1.15)bcd
  11th-12th −0.33 (0.75)bc −0.42 (0.94)a −0.33 (0.96)bc −0.10 (0.93)cde −0.51 (1.11)cd
F 98.90*** 53.31*** 75.71*** 43.02*** 77.08***
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Note. Mean differences were computed using multilevel analyses with robust standard errors to account for the nested structure of the data (students nested in schools) and the large sample size. Values followed by the same subscripts are not significantly different. Bonferroni corrections were applied to the pairwise comparisons.

***

p < .001.

Contributor Information

Salvatore Ioverno, Department of Sociology Ghent University Ghent, Belgium.

Stephen T. Russell, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, Population Research Center University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

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