Symposium Proceedings »
S3.8.12 Gifted LGBTQ Students around the World: Needs and Responses
The proposal strives to be relevant, developed, creative, high-quality, and grammatically sound. Relevant: While LGBTQ youth are safer and happier in some parts of the US than they were in previous years (GLSEN, 2015), there is a large difference in safety and happiness depending on the particular area of the US (Meyer, 2014; Swan, 2015). Almost nowhere in the US are there openly-LGBTQ K-12 teaching role models and curriculum to study from (Seney, 2018). In other parts of the world, there are widely varying receptions for gifted LGBTQ youth, with different levels of progress being made on LGBTQ safety, curriculum, educators, and teacher training (Sears, 2005). Development: The presenters have all presented at many conferences on gifted youths' needs, addressing the empirically-supported general points points that they will be making at the World Council about gifted LGBTQ students. Specifically, they will speak on the importance of, and extent in their nations of, LGBTQ physical safety (GLSEN, 2015; National LGBTQ Task Force, 2016), social-emotional support(GLSEN, 2015), educators who are LGBTQ (CEC-LGBT Caucus,2017), curriculum that is inspirational (NAGC, 2019), and educator training that can make for all these goals (Friedrichs & Sedillo, 2019). Each presenter will speak for 10 minutes, with several minutes of subsequent questions. Creativity: Just as the situation in each of the five countries has developed differently, and has varied documentation, the five presenters will convey the stories of their countries' efforts for gifted LGBTQ youth in different ways. For example,the US speaker will present data on student needs and empirical approaches from peer-reviewed books and journals, while the Australian presenter will blend published stories and professional accounts, and the Dutch speaker will augment his life story with examples of how the current situation in the Netherlands reflects some of those experiences. Quality: The speakers will each provide the maximum amount of empirically-supportive data, though that amount will differ from nation to nation.The speakers' qualifications relate to their unique academic and professional experiences. The US presenter has offered international sessions on this topic for 30 years, and has been awarded gifted organization awards for his efforts. The Australian speaker has practiced psychotherapy for as long with LGBTQ gifted clients. The Dutch presenter has spoken at world gifted conferences for decades on gifted students and their adult social-emotional challenges. And the Canadian and Irish speakers both have long provided overall life guidance for highly gifted LGBTQ youth.