Author Description

This dissertation, "A Qualitative Study of Chinese Male Sexual Minority Students Navigating Heterosexism in Hong Kong Secondary Schools" by Kan, Diana, Kwok,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: This phenomenological qualitative study is informed by integrated theories including a social constructionist perspective on human sexuality, sexual identity development models, heterosexism with theoretical support of minority stress model and feminist theory. The aim was to uncover the lived experiences of 20 male sexual minority students navigating heterosexism in secondary schools, within the socio-cultural context of Hong Kong Chinese society. Due to the invisibility of sexual minority adolescents in Hong Kong, purposeful sampling was used to recruit informants who were having same-sex sexual attractions and/or sexual behaviors/sexual identity. Over the period 2008-2011, twenty male informants, aged 14 to 19 and currently enrolled in secondary schools, were recruited for in-depth interviews. In terms of community labels, these informants might be known as gay, bisexual, memBa, tongzhi, tongxinglian, and those who are still questioning their sexual identity. Parental consents were waived for informants under eighteen years old and alternative measures were carried out to safeguard confidentiality and their best interests. Qualitative data analyses via a software package NVivo yielded several overarching themes: 1) "exploring my sexuality in school"; 2) "feeling powerless over overt homophobia"; 3) "feeling alienated over heteronorm