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Unveiling Concealable Stigmatized Identities in Class: The Impact of an Instructor Revealing Her LGBTQ+ Identity to Students in a Large-Enrollment Biology Course

Sharing personal information can help instructors build relationships with students, and instructors revealing concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) may be particularly impactful. One CSI is the LGBTQ+ identity, but there has been no research on the student-perceived impact of an instructor reve...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Busch, Carly A., Supriya, K., Cooper, Katelyn M., Brownell, Sara E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9508908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35580002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.21-06-0162
Descripción
Sumario:Sharing personal information can help instructors build relationships with students, and instructors revealing concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) may be particularly impactful. One CSI is the LGBTQ+ identity, but there has been no research on the student-perceived impact of an instructor revealing this identity. In this exploratory study conducted at an institution in the U.S. Southwest, an instructor revealed that she identifies as LGBTQ+ to her undergraduate biology course in less than 3 seconds. We surveyed students (n = 475) after 8 weeks to assess whether they remembered this, and if so, how they perceived it affected them. We used regression models to assess whether students with different identities perceived a disproportionate impact of the reveal. Most students perceived the instructor revealing her LGBTQ+ identity positively impacted them; regression results showed LGBTQ+ students and women perceived greater increased sense of belonging and confidence to pursue a science career. Students overwhelmingly agreed that instructors revealing their LGBTQ+ identities to students is appropriate. This study is the first to indicate the perceived impact of an instructor revealing her LGBTQ+ identity to students in the United States and suggests that a brief intervention could positively affect students.