LGBTIQ+ young people’s lived experiences of homophobic bullying in Swedish schools

Research highlights that LGTBQ young people are at greater risk of bullying than their heterosexual and cisgender peers and greater risk of being negatively affected by the bullying to which they are subjected.

Despite this, there has been relatively little qualitative research into the homophobic bullying experiences of LGBTQ young people, or the experiences of intersex and other non-heterosexual orienting and non-cisgender identifying young people (LGBTIQ+).

In this qualitative project, we address this lacuna in knowledge by exploring LGBTIQ+ young people’s lived experiences of homophobic bullying in Sweden, the ways in which LGBTIQ+ young people perceive their experiences of homophobic bullying to have affected their wellbeing; the support and/or assistance that they perceive was provided to those bullied; and their perceptions on what forms of support/assistance are most effective for dealing with and protecting against homophobic bullying.

The project will run for four years and will involve semi-structured interviews with approximately 60 self-identified LGBTIQ+ young people aged 16–19 attending upper secondary school in Sweden.

The interviews will be thematically analyzed with the help of the theoretical concepts of (mis)recognition, stigma, and affect.

The project will provide crucial information informing broader efforts at preventing homophobic bullying in schools, and promoting wellbeing and preventing ill health among the LGBTIQ+ population in Sweden.