Promoting community and competence: the development and evaluation of an international research training network of sexual and gender diverse (SGD) emerging scholars

ABSTRACT

Specialized research training is a key component of graduate education, yet sexual and gender diverse (SGD) emerging scholars may not receive quality training and networking opportunities at their home institutions. International and interdisciplinary trainings by SGD scholars may develop research competence and academic networks, but few such extracurricular research training programs exist. This article presents the curriculum and mixed-method evaluation of the International Student Training Network (ISTN), a two-year bilingual training program designed to train SGD emerging scholars in Canada, the USA, Mexico, and the UK to conduct research with SGD youth. The racially diverse and interdisciplinary trainees (N = 38) completed a competence self-assessment at pre-test, midpoint, and post-test. Significant improvements in knowledge and skill were found, while importance of the concepts remained consistently high. Twelve trainees participated in interviews to reflect on their experience. Thematic analysis produced three themes, describing benefits of the ISTN: (1) ‘You do stick out a lot’: Fostering SGD scholarly community in academia; (2) ‘We were all working together’: Bridging the disciplinary and geographic gaps; and (3) ‘A transformative experience’: Developing scholarly self-concept and academic self-efficacy. The findings highlight the utility of specialized research training for emerging SGD scholars limited by geographical and disciplinary siloes.

KEYWORDS:

• International student training network
• sexual and gender diverse youth
• research training
• LGBTQ+ students
• research competence
• emerging scholars

Acknowledgements

This project is funded by Partnership (SSHRC #895-2018-1000) and Connection Grants (#611-2019-0024; #611-2022-0097) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the John R. Evans Leaders Fund of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI #37651), and International Doctoral Cluster (IDC) Grants from the University of Toronto. Shelley L. Craig is the Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number #611-2019-0024, #611-2022-0097].