Sharing personal information has been recognized as an effective way for instructors to build relationships with their students and foster a sense of community in their courses. Revealing personal identities may be particularly impactful for students with concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs), defined as identities that can be kept hidden and that carry negative stereotypes, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) identities. Students with CSIs often struggle to find similar others in science, which can negatively affect their sense of belonging. Previous studies have assessed the factors leading to LGBTQ+ instructors or students revealing their identity in the classroom, but we know of no studies that have looked at the impact of an instructor revealing their LGBTQ+ identity on students. In this study, the instructor revealed that she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community in less than five seconds using a single PowerPoint slide. At the end of the semester we surveyed the 580 students in the course to assess to what extent the instructor revealing her LGTBQ+ identity impacted students’ (1) willingness to approach the instructor for mentorship, (2) feelings of connectedness with the instructor, (3) confidence in their ability to pursue a career in science, (4) sense of belonging in the course, and (5) sense of belonging within the scientific community. Using a linear regression and controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, history of anxiety and depression, and semester, LGBTQ+ students reported greater gains in each of these outcomes compared with their non-LGBTQ+ peers. Notably, we found that the majority of students, both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+, in the course agreed that the instructor revealing her LGBTQ+ identity enhanced each of these outcomes. Further, our results indicate that LGBTQ+ students in particular are positively impacted across all five outcomes by instructors revealing their LGBTQ+ identities, and that revealing this information strengthens the relationship between the instructor and most students in the class. This study is the first to demonstrate an impact of instructor LGBTQ+ identity on students, which supports the assertion that a brief intervention could have far reaching potential effects on students.

Coming out to the class: Students benefit from instructor revealing LGBTQ+ identity in a large-enrollment biology course

ACS Fall 2021

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