Research and Teaching Statement
To prospective graduate students:
I am committed to a research program that addresses the multi-level factors that facilitate or mitigate against the healthy development and psychological well-being of sexual minority adolescents and same-sex couples and their families. To this endeavor I bring a unique disciplinary lens as a counseling psychologist with research and clinical experience in addressing person and environmental "fit" as it relates to the health and well-being of sexual minorities. I welcome the opportunity to work with dedicated and highly motivated graduate students who are likewise committed to developing their research skills and applying those skills to collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects that address important social issues. While research on sexual minority populations may be viewed by some as non-traditional, or even controversial, I believe that these goals are solidly aligned with and illustrative of the goals of traditional counseling psychology, particularly in the commitment to promoting healthy development across the life-span and to approaching students, supervisees, clients, and research participants not as "problems" to be solved but as resources to be respected, cultivated, nurtured, and supported. In the pages that follow, I discuss my philosophy of teaching and my research program in hopes that it will help you assess the potential "fit" between your goals and mine. I encourage you in your application process to give careful consideration to finding a good 'match' for yourself in terms of a research mentor, as the quality of this relationship will greatly influence your experience and your eventual success in your graduate program.
My Philosophy of Teaching and Graduate Training
"Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you don't consider your students to be human beings." -Lou Ann Walker (b.1952)
"Those who trust us educate us." -George Elliot (1818-1880)
In my role as an Associate Professor, I am responsible for facilitating the learning and professional development of future counselors, psychologists, teachers, researchers, and consultants. My mission is to facilitate each student's intellectual growth and development. To accomplish this mission, I strive to: 1) model and reinforce disciplined inquiry, observation, reflection, and application; 2) understand and respect diverse backgrounds, experiences, and learning styles; and, 3) facilitate the development of students' strengths and skills for the betterment of individuals, communities, and society. Effectively meeting this challenge requires that I attend to students as whole persons, foster a classroom climate that is supportive and challenging, and design learning activities that target three primary components of effective learning: creative and critical thinking, collaboration, and an appreciation of diverse perspectives.
Creative and Critical Thinking
My philosophy of graduate training necessitates that students hone the intellectual
skills of disciplined inquiry, observation, reflection, and application. In
each of my courses, I strive to provide opportunities for students to organize
and synthesize material in new ways and to create and critique new knowledge
and meanings. To accomplish these objectives, I often use small group activities
and writing assignments that demand high order thinking and skilled communication.
I incorporate many different kinds of writing into my courses under the assumption
that clear writing facilitates clear thinking. To foster connections between
theoretical concepts and "real world" relevance, for instance, I use
structured journal exercises. To encourage creative and critical thinking in
class, I use five-minute "free-writes" on a problem or dilemma. I
often have students share reactions to videos or readings by posting short summaries
to the course discussion list. For more in-depth exploration of a specific literature,
I use thesis-based assignments that guide students in using evidence and argument
to persuade a specific target audience.
To encourage both critical thinking and collaboration, I incorporate a peer-review
component into major writing projects. For instance, in my lifespan gender development
course, students select a scholarly biography of a person who is culturally
different from themselves and write a detailed analysis of the interaction of
gender, race, and class in the life of that person. Each student's paper is
"blind reviewed" by two other class members who provide written feedback.
Reviewers and authors discuss the feedback in a structured peer-review workshop
prior to the final revision. Through this process, both reviewers and authors
are exposed to new content as they develop valuable skills in critical thinking,
clear writing, and giving constructive feedback.
Collaboration
A key to productive scholarship and socialization into any profession is active
participation in the "community" of scholars. The myth of the "lone
ranger" scientist-practitioner is unrealistic, if not impractical. As practitioners,
we must consult with each other and hold each other accountable for ethical
practice. As scientists, we must understand and appreciate our intellectual
heritage even while we critique it and move forward in our joint efforts to
discover and create new knowledge. We must collaborate to be productive in a
complex global society demanding many different perspectives for effective problem-solving.
Students must develop the skills for collaborative work if they are to engage
the current conversations and controversies of the discipline and effectively
address the needs of a diverse society. Effective collaboration requires that
each student first take responsibility for his or her own learning outcomes.
I strive to foster a learning environment in which students are expected to
actively engage both the content and process by determining at the outset what
they need to do to meet their individual and collective learning goals. Consistent
with feminist pedagogical principles, I begin on the first day of class to establish
a norm of shared power and control by asking the students to discuss and revise
the syllabus to reflect most accurately mutually agreed upon goals. In this
way, students immediately take "ownership" of their education, and
I become a consultant and facilitator of their growth and development.
Growth and change require setting goals and taking risks. Through the use of
learning contracts, students establish mutually agreed-upon goals, make plans
for accomplishing those goals, and have a means of evaluating the extent to
which the goals are being accomplished. In this way, students are active in
all phases of the process and work collaboratively with the instructor in evaluating
the methods and outcome. This approach also recognizes diverse learning styles
and interests by incorporating some flexibility and choice into how each student
will accomplish the learning objectives for the course. The diversity of goals
contributes to the richness of the learning community as each student shares
what he or she is discovering.
Cross-Cultural/Diverse Perspectives
A deep understanding and appreciation of diversity as an educational asset and a societal benefit leads to a broader intellectual and ethical perspective that is essential for addressing the psychosocial issues of the future. To attain this appreciation, students must actively engage with difference, both in the classroom and beyond. In the classroom, I integrate analyses of knowledge production, culture, and representation through carefully selected readings and guided discussions. Each student is encouraged to examine how his or her social context influences his or her worldview, environment, and behavior, with particular attention to the interaction between identity development and power/privilege. As we explore biases, assumptions, and stereotypes about the "other," I strive to recognize the limitations of my own experience and fill in gaps with "other" voices through guest lectures, video clips, and primary readings. In each class, I also directly address the anxiety and discomfort that students often feel as they challenge themselves to recognize and address issues of diversity inside and outside the classroom. Facilitating and managing classroom discussions that are intense and yet productive often leads to learning experiences that students report as the most memorable and meaningful.
Research Statement
As a counseling psychologist, I bring a perspective to my research that is
strongly influenced by the values of my discipline and profession. Specifically,
the foundational commitments that guide my research and scholarship include
foci on understanding human behavior 1) within multi-leveled and interacting
social contexts, 2) from a strength and resiliency perspective as opposed to
a pathology perspective, and 3) for the ultimate purpose of addressing important
contemporary social justice issues. To this disciplinary "lens," I
bring to my research program particular strengths in the areas of theoretical
and conceptual formulation and synthesis and my collaborative philosophy or
"team-approach" to the process of conducting research that will have
an impact on the field. I am committed to collaborative and interdisciplinary
research as a productive model for creating new knowledge and for training new
scholars. As a result, I have sought opportunities to collaborate with peers,
senior colleagues, and graduate students across several social science disciplines.
To accomplish this goal, my colleague, Dr. Ellen Riggle and I formed a research
team (PRISM, psychosocial research initiative on sexual minorities). This interdisciplinary
team of faculty and students collaborates on research research questions important
to facilitating the health and well-being of sexual minority youth and same-sex
couples and their families.
Same-Sex Couples and Their Families
Building on my previous research on adolescent dating couples, I extended my
research program to same-sex couples and families. One of the first projects
focused on workplace issues in a web-based survey of 118 couples. Using interdependence
theory and minority stress theory as the conceptual foundation, we found evidence
through dyadic analysis of actor/partner effects that decision-making was interdependent.
Specifically, individuals' decisions to "come out" at work was not
only associated with their own employers' non-discrimination policies and with
their own internalized homophobia, but was also significantly associated with
their partners' internalized homophobia and whether or not their partners were
protected by a non-discrimination policy at work (Rostosky & Riggle, 2002).
In 2000, I received the American Psychological Foundation's Wayne F. Placek
award to conduct a multi-method study of young adult gay male and lesbian couple
relationships. This project involved extensive interviewing and analysis of
young adult couples' conversations about interpersonal commitment and family.
The findings from this project contribute both theoretically and empirically
to the literature on same-sex relationships. This research demonstrates that
same-sex couples' perceptions of commitment in their relationships have unique
aspects that are born out of their marginalized social status, therefore, theoretical
frameworks based on heterosexual relationships, while useful, may not fully
capture important dimensions (Rostosky, Riggle, Dudley, & Comer Wright,
in press). For instance, couples that lack recognition and validation of their
relationships must devise coping strategies that compensate for this lack of
acknowledgement and that serve to strengthen their couple identity in relation
to their families of origin (Rostosky, Korfhage, Duhigg, Stern, Bennett &
Riggle, 2004), in relation to religious communities and traditions (Rostosky,
Otis, Riggle, Brumett & Brodnicki, in press) and in relation to other homonegative
social contexts (Dudley, Rostosky, Riggle, Duhigg, Brodnicki & Couch, 2005).
Most recently, the team has collected qualitative data on interracial same-sex
couples' coping strategies, with funding provided by the American Psychological
Foundation's Wayne F. Placek award (2004) and couple interviews on the integration
of religiosity and sexuality in committed couple relationships.
One of the recurrent themes across the qualitative studies is couples' recognition
of the inequality of legal status accorded same-sex relationships. With Dr.
Riggle and members of our research teach, we have conducted multi-method studies
to investigate the factors affecting the execution of advance planning documents
by same-sex couples. Our findings from a series of web-based surveys have demonstrated
that obtaining legal protections is a couple-level decision (Riggle, Rostosky,
Prather & Hamrin, 2005) and that relational factors such the level of commitment
in the couple relationship and the level of disclosure of the relationship to
extended family are associated with advance legal planning (Riggle, Rostosky,
& Prather, in press). We have used our accumulating experience in conducting
large web-based studies to write an article detailing important issues to be
considered by researchers who wish to conduct on-line research with sexual minority
populations (Riggle, Rostosky & Reedy, 2005).
With a University of Kentucky Research Committee grant (2003), we collected
qualitative interviews with local couples that did or did not have advance planning
documents Riggle, Rostosky, Couch, Brodnicki, Campbell & Savage, under review).
This project elucidated the specific factors that promote and inhibit advance
planning among same-sex couples. Since advance planning is a strategy for providing
some of the legal protections that are automatically conferred on married couples,
we addressed the issues of the denial of legal marriage rights to sexual minority
citizens (Riggle & Rostosky, in press; Riggle, Thomas, & Rostosky, 2005).
We have extended this conceptual work by designing a web-based study (with Dr.
Sharon Horne at the University of Memphis) that will test a model of minority
stress and resilience in the wake of state amendments that deny marriage rights
to sexual minorities.
We have used these findings to educate counselors and other service providers
who work with same-sex couples and their families (see Riggle & Rostosky,
2005). In terms of research methodology, our work has demonstrated the utility
of conceptualizing the couple as a unit of analysis and employing a qualitative
methodology to discover relational factors unique to individuals who do not
enjoy the same social privilege assumed by the majority population on which
most theory and empirical work is based.
Sexual Minority Youth
In the course of interviewing forty same-sex couples under the American Psychological
Foundation grant, I was struck by the importance of school and community context
for fostering the healthy identity development of sexual-minority individuals.
In many of the interviews with couple members from rural areas of Kentucky,
an "exodus" theme emerged around the challenges of negotiating a positive
identity and self-concept in the absence of social support and, all too often,
in the presence of overt hostility and threat. Even within the overall negatively
perceived school environments, however, some participants related accounts of
significant, positive, supportive relationships with adults in the community.
Often, these adults were teachers who offered support and encouragement that
were perceived by the young person as a "lifeline."
Largely as a result of these compelling narratives, I have initiated study
of the school climate for sexual minority students. Thus far, I have examined
the perceptions of school climate (i.e. homonegativity, school belonging) in
which same-sex attracted adolescents learn and develop in rural Appalachian
high schools. This study is one of the first published studies to examine rural
youth and sexual attraction status. Findings from this work demonstrate that
sexual minority youth report a lower sense of belonging to their school communities
than do their heterosexual peers (Rostosky, Owens, Zimmerman, & Riggle,
2004). These findings were replicated and extended using data from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), where we demonstrated
that sexual minority girls from rural contexts report the lowest level of school
belonging and the highest level of depressive symptoms relative to any other
adolescent demographic group (Galliher, Rostosky, & Hughes, 2004).
Also in the area of sexual minority youth, I worked with Dr. Rick Zimmerman
(PI) and an interdisciplinary team to evaluate peer-training programs to reduce
the HIV in high-risk populations. As co-investigator for an NIAAA funded project
entitled, "Sexual risk-taking, alcohol, and HIV prevention in youth,"
I coordinated the development and evaluation of a peer-leader intervention to
reduce risk and build healthy relationships among Young Men Who Have Sex With
Men (YMSM). Using survey data from this project, my students and I examined
the contribution of both individual and relationship variables in predicting
risky sex behaviors among young men who have sex with men (Dudley, Rostosky,
Korfhage, & Zimmerman, 2004). Our findings indicated that reporting a higher
number of sex partners or and/or steady dating partner was associated with more
frequent sexual risk-taking. Additionally, higher impulsivity contributed to
the predictive ability of the model. These findings support the notion that
HIV prevention programming must take into consideration differing personality
styles rather than using a "one-size-fits-all" approach.
Finally, in collaboration with Dr. Riggle and Dr. Fred Danner, we conducted an analysis of Add Health data to determine the influence of religiosity on substance use according to sexual identity trajectory. Previous work had indicated that religiosity was protective, for the short time, against initiation of sexual intercourse (Rostosky, Regnerus, & Comer Wright, 2003; Rostosky, Wilcox, Comer Wright & Randall, 2004). Our subsequent analyses using the Add Health data suggested that religiosity is a protective factor against substance use, but only for heterosexual youth and young adults (Rostosky, Danner & Riggle, under review). In future work, we hope to further examine developmental assets and resilience among sexual minority youth.
More information about my research on these topics is available on the PRISM
webpage at http://www.uky.edu/~rostosk/prism.html