Progress and Backlash in the Wake of Obergefell: Reaching Conservative Southern Teachers Through the Power of Literature

This paper uses a mixed narrative and quantitative analysis to examine how a graduate class of predominantly politically and religiously conservative (self-identified), elementary teachers in the South made discursive sense of gender and sexually diverse (GSD) young adult and children's literature in the context of concurrent, relevant national events, especially the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. Using narrative data, supplemented with quantitative pre- and postsurveys, this study provides fruitful insights into conservative professionals' attitudes and practices regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth and adults. Our findings suggest effective ways to help prepare conservative professionals to sensitively address GSD issues in elementary school settings.     

Queering the Social Work Classroom: Strategies for Increasing the Inclusion of LGBTQ Persons and Experiences

ABSTRACT

The inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) perspectives and experiences in the social work classroom is necessary to adequately include LGBTQ students and prepare graduates to practice effectively. Drawing from queer theory as a theoretical framework and the authors’ experiences in practice and teaching/learning spaces with LGBTQ youth, this article offers practical strategies for creating classrooms inclusive of LGBTQ persons. Queering the classroom builds skills in students beyond practice with LGBTQ people and communities, thereby enhancing their capacity to engage diversity in practice more generally and to advance human rights and social justice.     

“I Just Want to Be Myself”: Adolescents With Disabilities Who Identify as a Sexual or Gender Minority

Abstract

Adolescents with disabilities who identify as a sexual or gender minority are at high risk for negative school experiences and poor outcomes, including peer rejection, bullying, and dropping out. Using an intersectionality framework, this study examined how multiple marginalized identities influence sense of self and school experience for this population. Findings reveal a complex picture of lived experiences and support the need for important changes in school practices.     

Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá: Conceptualizing the self-authorship experience of gay Latino college men using conocimiento

This essay aims to enhance our conceptual understanding of students with intersectional identities, specifically gay Latino men in college. We first explain how ethnic, gender, and sexual identities can act as compounding influences. Second, we review two distinct but complementary developmental theories. Conocimiento captures the disruptive, challenging path experienced by marginalized Latino youth. Self-authorship situates the broader developmental process in and beyond college. Our modified framework—conociéndose y escribiéndose—conceptualizes how college students navigate multiple marginalized identities. Finally, we discuss the implications of this intersectional framework for LGBTQ+ students and institutions seeking to enhance diversity, inclusion, and student success.     

Ladylike/butch,sporty/dapper: exploring ‘gender climate’ with Australian LGBTQ students using stage–environment fit theory

Research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning (LGBTQ) and genderqueer (GQ) students has highlighted the links between school-based marginalisation and decreased school outcomes. This paper applies stage–environment fit theory to an investigation of school ‘gender climate’, the official and unofficial policing of gender expression by school staff and students, to explore what role gender climate plays in the above relationship. Three school life components associated with stage–environment fit theory – (1) the organisational, (2) the instructional and (3) the interpersonal – were used to scaffold interview data on school gender climate from five LGBTQ Australian young people. Results implicate school staff in the maintenance of gender climate and highlight the deleterious impact of school silences on related subject matter.     

Navigating the relationship between policy and practice: competing discourses of fear and care in teachers’ sense-making about the FAIR Education Act

In this article, I examine the relationship between large-scale social discourses and local, school discourses as it plays out in conversations about gender and sexuality with and among teachers, specifically in the context of the passage of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act in California. Grounded in feminist poststructural theories of discourse, I discuss qualitative data from a year-long study at one public middle school in Southern California where I provided professional development. I examine what happens when teachers are given opportunities to make sense of their roles in attending to topics of gender and sexual diversity, through conversations and dialogue. The following research questions guided my analyses: What themes arise in teachers’ conversations about their roles and responsibilities in the implementation of the FAIR Education Act? (How) are these themes produced in relationship with large-scale social discourses about gender and sexual diversity in schools? I argue that examining this relationship provides key insights into the ways teachers make sense of equity-focused policies that are meant to shift sociopolitical paradigms, and their roles and responsibilities in the implementation of such policies.