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Toews, Julia Breanne

University of British Columbia

Understandings of sexual orientation vary across individuals, cultures, geographic regions, and time. In queer theory, sexual orientation is seen as a social construction that is understood through the subjective experience of individuals. Queer newcomer youth are defined as immigrants, refugees, and international student youth between the ages of 19 and 24 who have immigrated in the last five years and identify broadly as non-heterosexual (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, questioning etc.) (hereafter, QNY). QNY experience a process known as school integration, which is defined broadly as the adjustment of newcomer youth to student life both inside and outside school spaces. For these youth, school integration may also entail negotiating competing cultural understandings of sexual orientation with those of their host country. This process and the resulting understandings of sexual orientations may be of particular importance to QNY, as adolescence is considered a significant period for sexual identity development. However, extant literature has focussed on Western-centric, non-immigrant understandings of sexuality and sexual orientation and has subsequently failed to consider the intersectional experiences and understandings of QNY. In this study, I used a phenomenographic methodology guided by a queer theory theoretical framework to explore, understand, and compare various ways QNY understand sexual orientation through the process of school integration. The aim of this study was to explore the ways QNY understand sexual orientation, and to inform broader conceptualizations of school integration and immigration. Data analysis revealed four qualitatively different understandings of sexual orientation collectively held by QNY: (a) attraction to gender; (b) attraction to type; (c) what you do; and (d) what you feel. Findings are discussed in the context of van Anders’ (2015) sexual configurations theory and Fuks et al.’s (2018) integrative model of cultural, sexual and gender identity development, alongside extant queer immigration, and sexuality literature. Limitations and strengths of this study, and implications for school psychology practice, training, research, and policy are also discussed.

Text

2023-09-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85888

School and Applied Child Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/