Ricerc@Sapienza

Gender typicality (GT) describes the self-perception of corresponding to a typical example of one's gender category across a range of interests, behaviors, activity levels, gestures, and ways of interacting with other people. GT is a social construct, the characteristics and meanings of which differ across contexts and cultures. Overall, literature on homophobic bullying clearly demonstrates that victimization is associated with low GT and with feminine traits for males and masculine traits for girls, regardless of sexual orientation. These studies suggest that perceiving oneself as being a typical member of the same gender group is a protective factor for victimization.
However, relatively few researchers have examined: (1) GT during young adulthood; (2) GT in sexual minorities; (3) how own-gender typicality and other-gender typicality are linked to teachers¿ and peers¿ victimization in sexual minorities. Thus, the main purpose is to investigate the recalled teachers' and peers' victimization in a sample of heterosexual and sexual minority young adults. In particular, our research project has three main goals:
(1) provide descriptive qualitative and quantitative data on the self-perception of GT and the past experiences of victimization, based on the GT of the participants;
(2) test the moderating and mediating roles of participants' age, gender, sexual orientation, religiosity, and socioeconomic status on the relationship between GT and past episodes of victimization;
(3) contribute to the validation of a measure of GT in a sample of Italian young adults.

We will adopt several research methodologies, including qualitative and quantitative-based research. An ad-hoc online surveys will use to collect data regarding the key variables. Moreover, we will conduct standardized interviews to extend the existing scientific literature concerning the relation between self-perception of GT and past episodes of victimization in heterosexual and sexual minority participants.