Bringing it out in the open: monitoring school violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression in national and international surveys

This Technical Brief has been developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to strengthen the routine monitoring of school violence that is based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression (SOGIE). It is informed by best practice from large institutional surveys that have been successfully conducted at the international or national level. The Brief provides recommendations on:
• Questions to capture data on the sexual orientation or gender identity of students.
• Questions to capture data on school violence that is specifically based on SOGIE.
The Brief also gives guidance on:
• The challenges in collecting data on school violence based on SOGIE
• Identifying and fulfilling indicators on school violence based on SOGIE
The audience for this Technical Brief is: monitoring and evaluation specialists who manage institutional surveys at the international or national level (including school-based and population-based studies); policy-makers in the education sector; and researchers who investigate school violence, including against young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and students who are perceived as gender non-conforming.

Dr Tiffany Jones, Macquarie University Department of Educational Studies, Australia, conducted a literature review and produced an initial draft. Christophe Cornu and Yongfeng Liu (Section of Health and Education, Division for Inclusion, Peace and Sustainable Development, Education Sector, UNESCO) developed the final version of this paper. Sarah Middleton-Lee edited the document.
Special thanks are due to Manos Antoninis (UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report Team), Laura Kann (formerly with CDC), Lisette Kuyper (The Netherlands Institute for Social Research), Eunice Den Hoedt and Camilo Garcia (formerly UNESCO Section of Health and Education), who reviewed and commented on the initial draft paper; as well as Terryann Clark and Theresa Fleming (University of Auckland, New Zealand), who provided technical inputs.