LGBTIQ high school students in Croatia hide their identity and more frequently experience violence than when at college and they lack system support, shows the first national survey on the experience of young LGBTIQ persons in education and the importance of support.

The survey was conducted by psychologist Marina Stambuk in cooperation with the Rainbow Families association and the Rijeka-based lesbian organisation “Lori”, and it covered 373 respondents aged 15-30.

The research shows that young people on average become fully aware of their LGBTIQ identity at the age of 14, that they reveal their sexual identity more frequently to their mother than their father, and that in contact with new persons more than half hide their identity.

More than half of the respondents said that they had encountered a situation during high school in which LGBTIQ persons were mentioned in a negative context, in class or in education materials, while one in three said they had experienced such situations a number of times or frequently.

During their high school young LGBTIQ people more frequently experienced negative comments from their peers compared to university, and as many as 20 percent experienced verbal violence from teaching staff in high school.

As many as 77 percent of young LGBTIQ persons do not know who to report violence to if they experience it in high school. Most said the best kind of support during high school would be sexual education as part of classes, which would also include LGBTIQ topics.

The research was conducted as part of a project for inclusive education, implemented by the said associations and the Norwegian organisation Norsensus Mediaforum. Most of the respondents came from Zagreb, Rijeka, Split, Varazdin and Pula.