Description

Background: Gender and Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) are youth-led, adult-advised clubs in middle and high schools that unite and build communities between sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) and allied youth. GSAs typically serve four main functions 1) Information & Resources, 2) Socialization, 3) Support and 4) Advocacy. Socialization and support have shown to be connected to lower rates of anxiety and depression, healthy development, positive well-being and hope. However, there is little consensus on how socialization and support are measured in the context of GSAs and SGMY. The current study builds upon the work of Poteat et al. (2016), by conducting two exploratory factor analyses on scales measuring socializing and support in two datasets of SGMY GSA members. Methods: Study 1 conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on a 17-item index assessing socialization and support, information and resources, and advocacy among 594 SGMY GSA members across 42 public, private and charter high schools in Massachusetts. Study 2 conducted a second exploratory factor analysis on an SGMY-adapted 11-item socialization and support index that derived from the 17-item index among 258 high school GSA members across 28 GSAs in Massachusetts, New York City, and San Diego. Results: The EFA for study 1 resulted in a three-factor structure which explained 61.43% of the total variance. The factor structure mirrored the original analysis (Poteat et al., 2016), among half the study population, confirming a seven-item support/socializing scale, a seven-item advocacy scale, and a three-item information/resource scale. For study 2, an EFA indicated that socialization and support loaded onto a single factor which explained 57.25% of the variance. Internal reliability was high, α = .92. Discussion: Despite evidence demonstrating that support has multiple forms which include socialization, and thus these two constructs may be better suited together, existing scales that measure socialization and support have done so separately. Our analysis indicates that socialization and support, in the context of SGMY in GSAs, may be better evaluated as a unidimensional construct.