A Qualitative, Exploratory Case Study of Self-Reported Influences Affecting the Decision of Homeless Sexual-Minority Students to Leave Home
This study was designed to identify commonalities regarding influences within the decision-making process that attributed to sexual-minority students voluntarily or involuntarily becoming homeless in lieu of remaining in their respective familial home. An exploratory case-study research design was utilized to determine common themes present in the self-described events that led up to the respective decisions of three volunteer participants, who identified themselves as sexual-minority youths at the time of transition, to leave home. Results of this study discerned five commonalities among the participants’ experiences, which influenced their experiencing homelessness. The detection of these commonalities may provide school administrators and other professionals, both within and outside of the public school system, with guidance on the creation of interventions designed to mitigate the impact of these factors, decreasing the potentiality of this demographic becoming homeless and thus being subjected to the detrimental ramifications inherent within such a circumstance.
Homelessness, Sexual-minority, Queer Studies, Case Study, Ecological Systems Theory, Educational Leadership, Educational Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
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