SOGI and School Life in Asian Contexts: Beyond Conflicts Toward Inter-minority Empathy

Representing an often overlooked population, this book explores the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in Asian countries. Contributors focus on LGBTQ+ youth’s school life experiences, including bullying and violence, a pervasive and serious problem.

This book aims to inform psychologists, mental health providers, and school professionals about the needs of LGBTQ+ youth from eight different Asian countries. Individual chapters present unique aspects of LGBTQ+ youth experiences in school contexts from different cultural perspectives. In addition, the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ and other minorities (including ethnicity, religion, and social class) highlights multiple sources of oppression or discrimination that can create additional pressures and stress for youth. The concepts of inter-minority conflict and inter-minority empathy are introduced to understand minority issues from new perspectives.

This is a valuable reference for psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses, mental health professionals, and students, whether preparing for general practice, treating LGBTQ+ clients, or supporting LGBTQ+ youth in schools around the world.

Makiko Kasai (she/her) works at the Naruto University of Education in Tokushima, Japan as a Professor and the Director of the Student Guidance and Support Center. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Ph.D. Her research interests include counseling and clinical psychology with psychoanalytic self psychology orientation and practice of sexual and gender minorities, cyberbullying, sexuality education, and LGBTQ+-friendly counselor training. She serves as the executive director of the Japanese Society of Clinical Psychology and as a national delegate to the Japanese Society of Clinical Psychologists.

Yuichi Toda is Professor at Osaka Kyoiku University (Osaka University of Education). He received his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Tokyo, and then he studied a doctoral course at the University of Tokyo. He was a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London from March 1998 to January 1999 and for a short time Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna during the summer from 2007 to 2010. He has written several English language articles on bullying/ijime. His research with Dr. Dagmar Strohmeier has received den Hauptpreis des Bank Austria Preises zur Förderung innovativer Forschungsprojekte 2008.

Stephen Russell (he/him) is Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor in Child Development, Chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, and Amy Johnson McLaughlin Director of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is an expert in adolescent and young adult health, with a focus on sexual orientation and gender identity. He has served on the governing boards of the Society for Research in Child Development, National Council on Family Relations (and is an elected Fellow), the Council on Contemporary Families, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, and the Society for Research on Adolescence (he served as President 2012–2014).