The current study is the first to investigate the school selection considerations and school-related experiences of sexual-minority parents with young children. the presence of adoptive families and among sexual-minority parents the presence of other lesbian/gay parents. Sexual-minority parents were more likely to consider racial diversity than heterosexual parents. In reporting on their experiences with schools heterosexual parents were more likely to perceive mistreatment due to their adoptive status than sexual-minority parents and sexual-minority parents living in less gay-friendly communities were more likely to perceive mistreatment due to their sexual orientation than sexual-minority parents living in more gay-friendly communities. Our findings have implications for early childhood educators and administrators Amonafide (AS1413) seeking to create an inclusive learning community for all types of families. represents the deviation of each member of the couple from the couple average. This intercept is treated as randomly varying; that is it is allowed to take on different values for each couple. The intercepts that are estimated for each couple are treated as an outcome variable at Level 2. The intercept in the Level-2 equation γ00 provides an estimate of the average outcome score across couples and represents the deviation of each couple from the overall average across all couples. Level Rabbit polyclonal to FBXW4. 1 (within couples): represents the outcome score of partner in dyad = 1 2 for the two members of the dyad. In addition to the above “fixed effect” estimates (e.g. the γ00’s) estimates of the variance of the “random effects” both within and between couples are provided (e.g. the variance of the rij’s and the u0j’s) Amonafide (AS1413) as well as the covariance between partners. Predictors can then be added to the model with those that vary within couples (e.g. education level) added at Level 1 and those that vary between couples (e.g. family income) added at Level 2. HLM was also used to examine mean differences by family type on the descriptive variables for which there was more than one report Amonafide (AS1413) per family (e.g. parents’ work hours). HLM of dyadic data does not however always derive accurate parameter estimates when applied to dichotomous outcomes (or other outcomes requiring a link function; Raudenbush 2008 Smith et al. 2013 We used hierarchical general linear modeling (HGLM) with a La Place transformation to improve parameter estimation (Raudenbush Yang & Yosef 2000 to address Questions 1 and 2 regarding whether or not parents considered each of the eight selection factors for which all outcomes were dichotomous (i.e. whether or not parents considered the factor). As a check we refit all models examining dichotomous outcomes using logistic regression. Continuous variables (i.e. income) were grand mean-centered. Dichotomous variables (sexual-minority versus heterosexual couple; White child versus child of color; public versus private school) were dummy coded (0 1 To examine for collinearity each predictor was entered alone as well as in combination with each other variable. 2.4 Follow-up analysis In our analyses of school selection considerations we first substituted several alternate codes for child race (i.e. Amonafide (AS1413) Black versus nonblack; internationally adopted from non-Anglo country versus not; transracial adoption versus inracial) out of an awareness that complexities of race ethnicity and culture may be difficult to capture. Second we conducted follow-up analyses controlling for the number of hours children were in school child age and parent race. Third to ascertain whether there were differences in findings for lesbian versus gay male parents all models were fit using separate dummy variables (0 1 for lesbian and gay men and then refit changing the default category (i.e. gay male heterosexual) so that differences between all groups could be examined. In our analyses of perceived mistreatment we conducted follow-up analyses controlling for the number of hours children were in school child age parent race and type of adoption (inracial/transracial). We then examined whether there were differences in findings for lesbian versus gay male parents. 3 Results 3.1 School selection factors: descriptives Table 2 presents the percentage of parents who endorsed considering.