Education

B.A., San Francisco State University (Physical Education) (1986)
B.A., San Francisco State University (History) (1986)
M.A., San Francisco State University (History) (1989)
Advanced Study, San Francisco State University (1991)
Ph.D., University of California, Davis (Education) (1997)

Dr. Elia is Associate Professor, and Associate Chair of Health Education, and the Co-Graduate Coordinator of the Masters of Public Health Program at San Francisco State University, where he has been on the faculty since 1987. Besides teaching over a dozen courses on the undergraduate and graduate levels, he has served as Interim Chair of the Department of Health Education.

His scholarship continues to focus on democracy and sexuality education in public schools. He has published numerous articles and book reviews in The Educational Forum, The Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, the Journal of the History of Sexuality, and the Journal of Homosexuality. The books he has co-edited include: The Contested Terrain of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies and Queer Theory (forthcoming, 2006), Sex and Relationships, 2nd edition (2005), Readings in Contemporary Sexuality, 2nd edition (2005), Queer Theory and Communication: From Disciplining the Queers to Queering the Disciplines (2003), and If You Seduce a Straight Person Can You Make Him Gay?: Issues in Biological Essentialism and Social Constructionism in Gay and Lesbian Identities (1993). Currently, he is co-editing a volume entitled Sexualities and Power in Education: Intervening in Schools and Communities.

Recently, he was interviewed as an expert on school-based sexuality education for a PBS video series, The Way We Live: Introduction to Sociology. Most recently, he has authored encyclopedia entries on homophobia and sexuality education for Youth, Education, and Sexualities: An International Encyclopedia; also, Dr. Elia served on the international advisory board of this publication.

His areas of expertise are: school-based sexuality education, school health education, health promotion of sexual minority youth, youth development, history and philosophy of American education, critical pedagogy, and queer studies. He is on the editorial boards of three international peer reviewed journals, The Educational Forum, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education, and the Journal of Popular Culture. Additionally, after many years, he continues to serve as the Associate Editor and Book Review Editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, an internationally renowned peer-reviewed journal.