Violence Against Lesbian and Gay Male College Students

Most of our colleges and universities are strongholds of homophobic discrimination and heterosexism which impact directly on lesbian and gay students, staff, and faculty, upon those exploring their orientation, and upon the entire campus community. The negative effects of external violence and of internalized homophobia include physical, sexual and emotional injury/damage, self-doubt, isolation, engaging in heterosexual attempts in order to survive, identifying with the aggressors and allowing further abuse, inability to function socially or academically, self-hatred, and engaging in serious self-destructive behaviors. Colleges and universities can establish policies and procedures to combat homophobia and heterosexism across the entire community and can develop a safe, supportive environment for all students, including those who are not heterosexual. Strong adminsitrative support is needed to ensure the required strenuous, continuing efforts.     

‘Decidedly Different’: lesbian women and education

ABSTRACT

Lesbian women's experiences of education frequently occurs within a contradictory public relationship: their identity ‘woman’ is usually ‘visible’ whilst their identity ‘lesbian’ remains generally ‘invisible’ ‐ both in educational settings and within wider educational discourses. By drawing upon examples of self‐understanding of lesbian identity this paper discusses the meanings and connections between these two identities from the perspectives of lesbian women themselves. The inclusion of self‐understanding of lesbian identity as a central feature in exploring the relationship of lesbian women and education permits a discussion of both lesbian oppression and lesbian agency. I will discuss this with reference to my recent study of lesbian women and education. The inclusion of self‐understanding of lesbian identity illuminates the complex relationships which exist between individual identity meanings and those which are socially constructed and maintained within an educational system based upon the ideology of heterosexism.     

Changers and the Changed: Moral Aspects of Coming Out in Physical Education

In this paper we draw from interviews with four lesbian sportswomen and physical educators whose personal journeys inform us about the difficulties and rewards of challenging homophobia and heterosexism. Our co-participants discussed their life stories in terms of the interrelationships among sport, moral, and lesbian identities and their coming out process. Analyses of these narrations revealed three major themes associated with coming out in sport and physical education settings: integrity, compassion, and community. Each of these themes is discussed in terms of our co-participants' experiences and interpretations of moving from fear and isolation to a sense of community and empowerment.     

Constr(i)(u)cting Lesbian Identities in Physical Education: Feminist and Poststructural Approaches to Researching Sexuality

The article explores some assumptions and limitations of current research about lesbians in physical education. Research has explored the identity management strategies used by lesbian teachers (Griffin, 1992b; Sparkes, 1994; Woods, 1992), based upon liberal and radical feminist assumptions that a “lesbian identity” exists in some essential form (Jaggar, 1988). Materialist feminist theory refuses any “essential” lesbian identity, but acknowledges the social construction of particular lesbian identities within specific historical conditions, illustrated in the work of Cahn (1994). Poststructural theorists (Bryson & de Castell, 1993; Butler, 1990; Pronger, 1990, 1992) also reject the existence of essentialized identities, and argue instead that “effects” of sexualities are continually being performed at the surface of the body. I argue this poststructural assumption, that lesbian identities do not really exist, is compatible with a politics “as if” they existed (Riley, 1988). Finally, the paper calls for a shift in research focus away from individual lesbian identity toward how institutional discourses constrict and construct lesbian identities.     

Don't Pass Us By: keeping lesbian and gay issues on the agenda

The implementation of equal opportunities policies in relation to lesbian and gay issues in education is enormously difficult and controversial. Meaningful policies must start from a perspective which challenges heterosexism, the assumption that gay relationships are of less value than heterosexual ones. All teachers and education workers, not only those who are gay, have a responsibility to keep lesbian and gay issues on the equal opportunities agenda.     

Feminist Pedagogy and Teaching Social Work Practice with Groups

The author operationalized five principles of feminist pedagogy in a social work methods course. This article discusses the principles of feminist pedagogy, the application of feminism to a classroom setting, and specific teaching techniques that are informed by feminist pedagogy. The author describes methods utilized to apply feminist pedagogical theory to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a social work practice with groups course. Results from students' pre-course assessments and post-course evaluations, the master-teacher's evaluation, and the instructor's self-evaluation indicate that the application of feminist pedagogy in this course resulted in an enhanced learning environment.     

Young girls in science: Academic ability,perceptions and future participation in science

Given the lack of information in either the school counseling or the gifted education fields on how school counselors and educators of the gifted work together, research into how individuals from both professions collaborate to serve gifted students and their families becomes important. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to examine gifted teachers' and coordinators' experiences working with school counselors. Fourteen participants, serving in a variety of K–12 settings, engaged in interviews regarding their different experiences working with their school counselors. Five primary themes resulted from these participants' reported experiences, including educators'/counselors' training and preparation, meeting gifted students' needs through service delivery, school counselors' perceptions and beliefs, systemic barriers and facilitators of collaboration, and teacher and counselor collaborative efforts. These findings are discussed with regard to current literature on gifted education, school counseling, and professional collaboration.     

Queer trepidations and the art of inclusion

Abstract

Contemporary research and pedagogy telated to sexualities and schooling in Australia, Aotearoa1/New Zealand and the United States often focuses on ways to alleviate homophobia and heterosexism in the hope of creating schools that are more inclusive of lesbian and gay (and very rarely bisexual, transgender and intersex2) (LGBTI) teachers and students. Within this paradigm, the notion of what comprises sexualities is often taken as given. Alternatively, researchers and educators may invoke essentialising narratives in order to make arguments for the inclusion of students and teachers who adopt LGBTI identifications. Drawing on a theoretical framework influenced by the work of Deborah Britzman3 and other queer theorists within and outside education this article interrogates these strategies of inclusion. In particular, I focus on research methodologies and pedagogies related to sexualities and schooling devised in the name of inclusion of young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)4 in secondary educational contexts. This analysis, which is based on my doctoral studies, commences with a consideration of queer theories and the art of inclusion. Subsequent to this I analyse pedagogies of inclusion and methodologies of inclusion, and, their nexus with queer theories.     

Feminist Knowledge and the Ivory Tower: A case study

This article is a historical look at the struggle to integrate feminist knowledge into the mainstream higher education curriculum in the UK. The research presented is based on interviews with academics and students of an 'old' university during the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. It forms part of a larger research project on the history of women's studies in higher education in the UK, and is a case study of one institution which resisted the integration of feminist knowledge into the mainstream curriculum. Through an examination of the social relations of the University and the structure of the curriculum, it is argued that feminist knowledge was 'silenced' to a certain extent. The factors which contributed to the resistance of feminist interventions serve to illuminate various aspects of the culture of higher education in the UK, which has historically viewed feminist knowledge, and women's studies, with a degree of ambivalence.     

School Counselors' Perceptions of Training Needs in Multicultural Counseling

Ratings by practicing school counselors' of their needs for training in multicultural counseling indicated that additional training is most needed to promote students' academic achievement and to enhance counselors' cross-cultural communication and racism awareness. Curricular implications are discussed.     

Becoming Allies for Each Other: An Inclusive Approach for Confronting Heterosexism in Schools

Through the voices of teachers and students, this piece describes an approach to professional development and classroom practice that teaches about heterosexism and homophobia as part of an inclusive process for promoting diversity education. Data from a qualitative research study that assessed the long-range effects of a professional development program in diversity education on teachers' practice, and accounts of co-author Karen Cathers, highlight the ways in which educators have successfully worked with students to confront heterosexism and homophobia. The article emphasizes that teachers have been allies to each other, and have educated students about how to address bias in school.     

Integrating Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual,and Transgender Issues into the Undergraduate Criminal Justice Curriculum

Although criminal justice has made strides to incorporate issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender into both research and teaching, the same cannot be said about issues of homosexuality. Prior research indicates criminal justice students are more homophobic than their peers in other majors and that bias against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) persons continues in the criminal justice system. As a result, this article argues that criminal justice educators should integrate issues of sexuality into criminal justice curricula as part of diversity education within the discipline. Few programs currently do so. This article outlines four methods for infusing justice‐related GLBT content into criminal justice classes, including: The teachable moment; incorporating GLBT‐relevant material in required courses; incorporating GLBT‐relevant material into diversity courses; and the development of new electives. These strategies can help combat heterosexism and homophobia.     

Rhizovocality

In this conceptual paper, the author offers a rethinking of the concept of voice in qualitative research informed by feminist, postcolonial, and poststructural theories. Using Deleuze & Guattari's (1987) figuration of the rhizome, the irruptions of voice in feminist and postfoundational qualitative research are mapped to invent a concept of voice, rhizovocality, that signifies voice as excessive and transgressive yet interconnected. This mapping begins with early feminist emancipatory research that assumed an authentic, silent woman's voice in need of liberation. Then, the author moves into dilemmas of power that emerged from critiques of problematic representations of voice within feminist research. The third section of the paper is a postcolonial feminist response to imperial uses of voice in feminist research, and the final part is a feminist deconstructive critique of voice in qualitative research. The article concludes with an argument for rhizovocality as a conceptual, deconstructive tool for working the limits of voice in qualitative research.     

Speaking out: perspectives of gay and lesbian practitioners in outdoor education in the UK

Outdoor education has been shaped historically and culturally by many influences. Physically challenging activities out of doors have been appropriated by a number of traditions. These include militaristic, educational and developmental ideologies. Arguably, central to these ideologies are heterosexual, white middle class values. While women have sought to challenge this and feminist and pro-feminist research is evident, very little research has been undertaken into sexuality in relation to teacher or practitioner perspective and experience. Consequently, gay and lesbian voices within outdoor education are all but silenced. This paper explores the perspectives of three lesbian and four gay men who work in the UK outdoor education ‘industry’.

In-depth interviews were held with the participants exploring a variety of issues relating to their life histories and their experiences of working in a predominantly heterosexist outdoor education culture. This paper focuses upon the ways in which the participants perceived the need to conceal their lesbian and gay identities and the consequential effects of managing their identities.     

Responding to Sexual Assault Victims: Considerations for College Counselors

College counselors need to be informed of effective interventions when counseling students who have been sexually assaulted. This article applies research and theory from the general literature on counseling sexual assault victims to college counselors' work with this population. An overview of the effects of sexual assault is followed by specific implications for counseling students who have been sexually assaulted.     

Students' Emotions as an Organizing Principle in the Social Work Curriculum

Using a quasi-experimental one-group, pretest–posttest design with non-random convenience sampling, the researchers assessed 61 advanced standing MSW students who matriculated at a rural intermountain Northwest school of social work. Changes in students' knowledge and attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people were measured using subscales of the LGB-KASH scale and include knowledge of LGB history, religious conflict, internalized affirmation of LGB people and issues, hatred and violence toward LGB people, and knowledge and attitudes toward extension and exclusion of civil rights for LGB people. Completion of required, highly experiential bridge course content regarding LGB history and experience appears to be significant in reducing religious conflict, increasing knowledge of LGB issues, and enhancing internalized affirmation of LGB individuals.     

Treading on eggshells: ‘doing’ feminism in educational research

This paper explores the contradictions of ‘doing’ feminist research, and how the materiality of engaging in fieldwork magnifies the gap between ‘ideal’ versus ‘actual’ feminist ways of conducting research. Drawing on my Doctoral research with British-Pakistani mothers of children with SEND, I explore the ethical and methodological challenges of engaging with feminist methodology and how this contributes value to the research process when working with marginalized groups. I examine three principles of undertaking feminist methodology; firstly, the ethical challenges arising from conducting unstructured interviews in a non-therapeutic context with vulnerable participants. Secondly, I explore how feminist researchers can positively contribute to making a practical difference in the lives of the women they research with, thereby going beyond how feminist values of reciprocity and responsibility towards participants have traditionally been implemented in the field. Finally, I consider utilizing theoretical frameworks which help analyse data to reveal sites for social change. This paper concludes by noting that traditional feminist methods may not always be more ethical, and that as feminist researchers we must be willing to adopt a holistic view of feminist values, where the vulnerabilities of the researcher and participants are both respected and where methodology is adjusted accordingly.     

College Counselors' Perceptions of Working With First‐Year Students With Chronic Illnesses

Despite increased interest in college students' success, there has been little research regarding students entering college with chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, and cancer. This qualitative study examined 15 college counselors' perceptions of working with first‐year students with chronic illnesses. Four themes emerged from the findings: counseling preparation, interactions, counseling interventions, and needs of students. The authors discuss implications for college counseling training and practice and directions for future research.