Domestic violence survivors' empowerment and mental health: Exploring the role of the alliance with advocates.

Over the last 4 decades, domestic violence (DV) programs-both residential and nonresidential-have sprung up in communities across the country with the aim of helping survivors become safe. These programs place strong emphasis on the relationship between the advocate and survivor as critical to becoming safer and healing from the trauma of abuse. Yet little research has demonstrated the extent to which specific aspects of the advocate-survivor alliance are related to specific indicators of survivor well-being, nor shown what factors might mediate that relationship.

Contextualizing gay-straight alliances: student, advisor, and structural factors related to positive youth development among members.

Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) may promote resilience. Yet, what GSA components predict well-being? Among 146 youth and advisors in 13 GSAs (58% lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning; 64% White; 38% received free/reduced-cost lunch), student (demographics, victimization, attendance frequency, leadership, support, control), advisor (years served, training, control), and contextual factors (overall support or advocacy, outside support for the GSA) that predicted purpose, mastery, and self-esteem were tested. In multilevel models, GSA support predicted all outcomes.

Short-term prospective effects of homophobic victimization on the mental health of heterosexual adolescents.

Many heterosexual youth report homophobic victimization but there is little longitudinal research to examine its mental health consequences for them. In a 7-month study across an academic school year among 572 heterosexual high school students (55% females), we tested the short-term effects of homophobic victimization on anxiety and depressive symptoms with attention to gender differences. Homophobic victimization at the beginning of the school year predicted higher levels of concurrent anxiety over and above levels attributable to general victimization.

Predicting homophobic behavior among heterosexual youth: domain general and sexual orientation-specific factors at the individual and contextual level.

As a form of bias-based harassment, homophobic behavior remains prominent in schools. Yet, little attention has been given to factors that underlie it, aside from bullying and sexual prejudice. Thus, we examined multiple domain general (empathy, perspective-taking, classroom respect norms) and sexual orientation-specific factors (sexual orientation identity importance, number of sexual minority friends, parents' sexual minority attitudes, media messages).

When biased language use is associated with bullying and dominance behavior: the moderating effect of prejudice.

Biased language related to sexual orientation is used frequently among students and is related to prominent social concerns such as bullying. Prejudice toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals also has been examined among adolescents, but separately from these behaviors. This study tested whether biased language use was associated with bullying and dominance irrespective of sexual prejudice or if sexual prejudice moderated these associations among 290 high school students (50% female; 56% White).