RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENT SEXUAL ORIENTATION: DEVELOPMENT, HEALTH DISPARITIES, STIGMA AND RESILIENCE

The decade between 1998 and 2008 saw rapid increases in research on adolescent sexual orientation development and related health issues, both in quantity and in quality of studies. While much of the research originated in North America, studies from other countries also contributed to emerging understanding of developmental trajectories and social influences on the health of sexual minority adolescents. This paper reviews the body of research from the past decade on adolescent sexual orientation, focused on issues of measurement, developmental trajectories, evidence related to health disparities, and the risks and protective factors that help explain the health and developmental challenges some lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents experience. Although many sexual minority adolescents face stigma and rejection within their families, their schools, or their communities, it should be noted that most successfully navigate the developmental tasks of adolescence, and attain similar levels of health and well-being as their heterosexual peers, often despite the stigma and discrimination they encounter. Further research is needed to understand population trends as well as individual patterns of development; cultural variations in both development and health disparities; the interplay of general and unique risk factors that contribute to various health disparities and protective factors that buffer those risks; and interventions to promote the healthy development of sexual minority adolescents.

Youth empowerment and high school Gay-Straight Alliances

In the field of positive youth development programs, "empowerment" is used interchangeably with youth activism, leadership, civic participation and self-efficacy. However, few studies have captured what empowerment means to young people in diverse contexts. This article explores how youth define and experience empowerment in youth-led organizations characterized by social justice goals: high school Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). Through focus group interviews, fifteen youth leaders of GSAs from different regions of California explain what they think empowerment means and how they became empowered through their involvement with the GSA. Youth describe three inter-related dimensions of empowerment: personal empowerment, relational empowerment, and strategic empowerment through having and using knowledge. When these three dimensions are experienced in combination, GSA leaders have the potential for individual and collective empowerment as agents of social change at school. By understanding these youth's perspectives on the meanings of empowerment, this article clarifies the conceptual arena for future studies of socially marginalized youth and of positive youth development.

Resilience Among Young Men Who Have Sex With Men in New York City

This article describes a study of resilience among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Resilience is defined as positive adaptation in the context of hardship. Using targeted sampling to capture the diversity and range of this hidden population, we recruited 569 YMSM ages 17-28 years old and examined a subset of 134 YMSM who had experienced severe childhood adversity, as indicated by placement in foster care. Most of the YMSM in this subset were from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds and fewer than half identified as gay or homosexual (46.3 percent). More than half (58.3 percent) exhibited positive outcomes on four of seven indicators of adaptive functioning. YMSM who identified as either bisexual or heterosexual exhibited lower rates of resilience. Structural- as well as individual-level factors appear to be implicated in resilience among YMSM. Findings underscore the importance of fostering stable sexual identity as a means of building resilience.