Research Methodology and LGBT Population- Some Points, Questions, and Conclusions in Studies

Research Methodology and LGBT population- some points, questions, and conclusions in studies about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender

In this lecture I’m going to analyze certain theoretical and methodological problems in the research of (homo) sexuality. I would also provide an overview of some of the conclusions in qualitative and quantitative research about LGBT population and same-sex families that could be interesting for researchers of gender and sexuality.

Dominant academic discourses in Serbia are still distinctly heteronormative, and there is an alarming lack of research on the everyday lives of the LGBT population. This problem is not only with tackling the issue of homosexuality by the social sciences but with the whole range of topics concerning the body and sexuality. Generally speaking, heteronormativity is the real obstacle in research of gender and sexuality in academia, so we have to try to find ways how to address some specific questions. We can discuss how to theorize and operationalize homosexuality. For example, measuring the size of the LGBT population is difficult:‘How do we recognize a gay man as such for our research, and where or what is the boundary between him and other men?’ According to author Gary Dowsett LGBT population especially younger generations of them ‘resist and refuse the category of gay man (or lesbian) and use queer or bisexual or undecided and questioning’. So there is need to find other ways to define same-sex populations.

The aim of this overview is to rise the question of LGBT perspectives in social sciences by pointing out the epistemological importance of studying non-heterosexual orientation and alternative family forms of LGBT. The first part includes the analysis of certain theoretical and methodological problems in the study of the LGBT population, and the second part gives an overview of contemporary research on same-sex families.

MarijaRadomanis a PhD student from the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, and Erasmus + student on exchange program at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Arts. Marija has participated in numerous conferences and research projects and has published in the areas of gender and sexuality. She published an independent publication entitled Attitudes and Value Orientations of High School Students in Serbia (2011), and she is co-editor of the volumeFeminist Forums: Selected Works in Gender Studies(2016) published by the Institute for Sociology, University of Belgrade. Also, she is one of the authors of Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia (Bilić & Kajinić, 2016).