Educating for Change: How Leadership Education and Training Affect Student Activism in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Undergraduates

Abstract

This thesis explored the extent to which leadership education and training experiences predicted student activism in lesbian, gay, and bisexual undergraduate students. The impact of these experiences were compared to the impact of participants' involvement and leadership in co-curricular and off-campus organizations to identify the additional ways that leadership education and training can supplement a student's organizational participation in encouraging student activism for this student population. Data from 2,681 students who identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual on the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership were used for this study. A single hypothesis was tested using the College Impacts model as the conceptual framework, and multiple regression was the chosen statistical method.

The model established for this study explained 51.3% of the observed variance in student activism with demographic variables, pre-college experiences, organizational participation, and leadership education and training experiences serving as positive predictors.