Themes of LGBT Representation and Curricular Location Within Educator Preparation

• In Event: The In/Exclusion of LGBT Issues in Preservice Education

Abstract

Purpose

This paper argues that simple and isolated representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) topics in educator preparation programs and textbooks present current impediments to future educators' knowledge about diversity and their developing the skills necessary to embrace it. A movement toward more sophisticated forms of LGBT inclusion will require education faculty to do two things: 1) portray the diversities within LGBT populations, and 2) consider the implications of where LGBT content is located in preparation programs. Each of these has the potential to shape the eventual beliefs, attitudes, skills, and actions of future teachers, school counselors, and administrators.
Data Sources
The discussion will review the findings of six research projects that examined sexual orientation and/or gender identity content within educator preparation programs and textbooks. Four of the projects outlined the sexual orientation content of 289 U.S. programs accounting for the preparation of up to approximately 39,000 K-12 teachers, school counselors, and educational administrators per year (Jennings, 2012; Jennings, 2013; Jennings & Sherwin, 2008; Sherwin & Jennings, 2006). The additional studies examined the LGBT-related content of 20 foundations and multicultural education textbooks (Jennings & Macgillivray, 2011; Macgillivray & Jennings, 2008).
Substantiated Conclusions and Scholarly Significance to the Field
The findings indicate that LGBT curricular representations lack complexity and breadth. For example, a number of programs and texts fail to include LGBT content or include very little. But even among programs and textbooks that do, narrow portrayals of LGBT students as victims of discrimination and "at-risk" abound (Kosciw, Greytak, Bartkiewicz, Boesen, & Palmer, 2012; Rofes, 2005), fewer offer commensurate representations of the diversity among LGBT youth or to equally accurate portrayals of LGBT people as agents who may possess unique assets compared to their non-LGBT peers (Anderson, 1998; Riggle, Whitman, Olson, Rostosky, & Strong, 2008). More complex portrayals of agency and intersectionality (sexuality and gender coupled to age, race/ethnicity, social class, and physical ability (Kumashiro, 2004)) might assist future teachers, counselors, and administrators to develop more sophisticated, accurate, and respectful perspectives that challenge notions of LGBT youth as "the other," as only white middle-class high-school students, or as innately at-risk because of their identities rather than because of the heterosexist cultures of schools and communities.
In addition to narrow representation, the data indicate that LGBT content in preparation programs is isolated in foundations courses but less often included in methods courses and fieldwork. Ninety percent of inclusive elementary programs covered sexual orientation content in foundations classes but this dropped to 30% in methods courses and 20% in student teaching. This pattern repeated among secondary teacher and school counselor programs. The potential implications of this pattern will be discussed.
Without more sophisticated and complex/accurate representations of LGBT people across the breadth of programs, new educators will continue to enter the profession with simplistic views of LGBT people, vulnerable to the socializing effects of heterosexist schools (Ferfolja, 2007), and ill-equipped to take concrete action toward improving schools and affirming LGBT youth.

Author

• Todd Jennings, California State University - San Bernardino