Bound by Bullying: Exploring the Limitations of LGBTQ Bullying Discourse Through In-Schools Experience and Research

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The dominant cultural understanding of bullying focuses on a bully/victim binary which fails to acknowledge heteronormative social systems of power that support acts of bullying targeted at LGBTQ and gender nonconforming students. Overt acts of violence against LGBTQ youth (or those who are perceived to be) are only the surface-level, explicit effects of heteronormative school cultures that privilege normative genders and heterosexuality. We must come to understand the problem of LGBTQ student bullying differently if we are to have different outcomes in our intervention efforts. This symposium will examine how dominant bullying discourses limit understanding of exclusions and aggressions targeting LGBTQ students and, therefore, limit the possibilities for school-based social justice work in the interest of LGBTQ students.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Section 5: Social Context of Research on Schools and Communities

Chair

• Elizabethe Payne, Queering Education Research Institute (QuERI)

Papers

• LGBTQ Kids, School Safety, and Missing the Big Picture: Why We Need to Rethink LGBTQ Bullying - Elizabethe Payne, Queering Education Research Institute (QuERI)

• LGBTQ Students Representing Otherness Through Visual Art - Kristin Goble, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

• Bullying, Binaries, Bathrooms, and Biology: Conversations With Elementary Educators About Supporting Transgender Students - Melissa J. Smith, University of Central Arkansas

Discussant

• Jessica Fields, San Francisco State University