Lgbtq Voices In Education

LGBTQ Voices in Education: Changing the Culture of Schooling addresses the ways in which teachers can meet the needs of LGBTQ students and improve the culture surrounding gender, sexuality, and identity issues in formal learning environments. Written by experts from a variety of backgrounds including educational foundations, leadership, cultural studies, literacy, criminology, theology, media assessment, and more, these chapters are designed to help educators find the inspiration and support they need to become allies and advocates of queer students, whose safety, well-being, and academic performance are regularly and often systemically threatened. Emphasizing socially just curricula, supportive school climates, and transformative educational practices, this innovative book is applicable to K-12, college-level, and graduate settings, and beyond.

LGBTQ Voices in Education: Changing the Culture of Schooling addresses the ways in which teachers can meet the needs of LGBTQ students and improve the culture surrounding gender, sexuality, and identity issues in formal learning environments. Written by experts from a variety of backgrounds including educational foundations, leadership, cultural studies, literacy, criminology, theology, media assessment, and more, these chapters are designed to help educators find the inspiration and support they need to become allies and advocates of queer students, whose safety, well-being, and academic performance are regularly and often systemically threatened. Emphasizing socially just curricula, supportive school climates, and transformative educational practices, this innovative book is applicable to K-12, college-level, and graduate settings, and beyond.

A 2023 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Many schools have failed to create a nurturing educational environment for LGBTQ students. Our Children are Your Students features a discussion about the various tactics that LGBTQ families use to work with schools that don’t anticipate the arrival of their families and children. The book features a verbatim theatre script called Out at School, which is based on interviews conducted with 37 LGBTQ families about their experiences in school. The families live in four different cities in the province of Ontario as well as in the suburbs and rural communities surrounding them. Written by Tara Goldstein, Jenny Salisbury, and Pam Baer, the play contains 22 scenes of verbatim monologues and dialogues. A set of images created by visual artist benjamin lee hicks accompanies each scene. The play also contains three original songs composed by musician Kate Reid, who draws on a number of the themes embedded in the scenes. Links to performances of the songs and to the artwork can be seen on the LGBTQ Families Speak Out project website: www.lgbtqfamiliesspeakout.ca. This is an important book for teachers and pre-service teachers who are interested in creating inclusive classroom environments for all students. Perfect for courses such as: School and Society | Social Foundations of Education | Multicultural Education | Critical Pedagogy | Inclusive Education | Gender, Sexuality, & Schooling

This collection can also serve as a resource for readers and teachers in high school classrooms and libraries to university courses that examine issues of LGBTQ youth.

This inaugural volume of the new book series, Research in Queer Studies is a collection of memoirs or short narrative essays in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex or queer PK-12 teachers and/or administrators (either “out” or “not out”) recount their personal experiences as a queer teachers. The authors of these stores write about significant experiences that describe how their sexual identity has shaped who they are today as teachers/administrators, by answering the following questions: • In light of your sexual identity, how did you become who you are today? • Why did you decide to become a teacher? What role did your sexual identity play in that decision? • What kinds of significant moments, including queer issues (e.g., bullying) regarding students and/or yourself, have you experience in your teaching? • In light of who you are as an individual, what do you hope to achieve and become as a queer teacher in the future?

This second edition is essential reading for educators and other school community members who are navigating the increasingly complicated laws and legal rulings related to LGBTQ students, employees, and community members. It combines historical, contemporary, theoretical, and practical information to help educators address exclusionary practices in schools related to gender identity, sexuality, racism, sexism, and other forms of bias that shape student experiences. To enable educators to better understand their obligations to students in relation to policy, staff training, daily school climate, pedagogy, and curriculum, the author has extensively revised this popular text to include updated information on the impact of same-sex marriage legalization and increasing federal recognition of transgender student rights. And because the legal terrain regarding transgender youth has been especially volatile, Mayo provides strategies educators can use to maintain ethical trans-inclusive teaching, even when local regulations appear to impede transgender inclusivity. Book Features: An examination of the pedagogical, curricular, and policy changes that can improve school experiences for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) and ally students.A new chapter on gender identity and transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive student experiences.Current policy and legal information, data, and justification for LGBTQ-equitable and inclusive teaching.

“Am I safe here?” LGBTQ students ask this question every day within the school system. In this book, Donn Short treats students as the experts, asking them to shine a light on the marginalization and bullying faced by LGBTQ youth. They insightfully identify that safety comes from a culture that values equity and social justice, not just security cameras, and they envision a future in which LGBTQ youth are an expected, respected, and celebrated part of school life. Am I Safe Here? offers a path to creating equitable and inclusive schools, drawing on the spontaneous and timely words of LGBTQ students to show that nothing less than a total culture change is needed.

Teacher educators have opportunities to include issues of multicultural education, equity, and social justice in the work done with preservice teachers. Including the educational and societal experiences of historically marginalized populations in curriculum creates spaces for teacher educators to model multicultural and social justice based pedagogies, while preparing teachers to work with and work for these students. The most effective way for teacher educators to address the unique perspectives of historically and currently marginalized populations is to integrate various perspectives throughout the curriculum (Grant & Zwier, 2012). Most teacher education programs address diverse populations via an integrated approach. In fact, Sherwin and Jennings (2006) found that potential student experiences regarding social class, race, and special needs populations were typically integrated into the curriculum, however, lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues were not. There is research that demonstrates how carefully planned and implemented educational interventions can have a positive effect on preservice teachers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward gays and lesbians (Butler, 1999). Despite the positive impact of addressing LGBTQ issues as a part of the teacher preparation program, Gorski et al. (2013) found that LGBTQ issues receive significantly less class time than other issues, especially race, and are, in fact, eight times more likely to actually be omitted from multicultural teacher educator courses. The inclusion of LGBT topics is important for a myriad of reasons. Most importantly, studies (GLSEN & Harris Interactive, 2012; Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, Bartkiewicz, 2010, 2012; Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer, Boesen, 2014; Kosciw, Greytak, Giga, & Danischewski, 2016) have revealed a negative school climate for students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender; this hostile environment can have dire consequences for these students. The impact of bullying and harassment due to LGBTQ students’ gender and/or sexual identities can produce a number of negative effects, including isolation from friends and family, depression, drug and/or alcohol use and addiction, low selfesteem, lack of engagement in school, academic failure, and fighting (Beam, 2007; Holmes & Cahill, 2004; Kosciw et al., 2010, 2012; Kosciw et al, 2014; Kosciw et al, 2016, Meyer, 2010; Wilkinson & Pearson, 2009). The negative climate does not just come from peer-to-peer negative interactions. In the most recent GLSEN study (Kosciw et al, 2016) it was found that • 57.6% of LGBTQ students who were harassed or assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff, most commonly because they doubted that effective intervention would occur or the situation could become worse if reported. • 63.5% of the students who did report an incident said that school staff did nothing in response or told the student to ignore it. • 56.2% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff, and 63.5% of students reported hearing negative remarks about gender expression from teachers or other school staff The aim of this book is to support teacher educators as they engage in the work of preparing pre-service teacher to work with and work for LGBTQ youth through explicit discussions of gender and sexuality. Chapters for this book include personal anecdotes regarding shifts in author’s thinking about including LGBTQ as a part of teacher preparation; specific pedagogical practices employed by authors to present LGBTQ focused material as a part of their coursework; the resistance authors have faced from students, parents and administration and their responses.