"Only a Tip of the Iceberg": Educators' Processes of Becoming Gender and Sexual Diversity Inclusive

• In Event: We're Here, We're Queer, We're in Elementary Schools

Abstract

Objectives and Perspectives
This research aims to grow the knowledge base on preparing elementary educators for “gender and sexual diversity-inclusive education” (Meyer, Taylor, & Peter, 2014). Recently, in related literature there has been a focal shift from examining educators’ attitudes and (non)interventions in anti-LGBTQ bullying and harassment toward building teachers’ capacities to assume proactive stances that affirm LGBTQ youth (Greytak & Kosciw, 2014). Studies have examined how environmental factors, for example, community attitudes (e.g., Payne & Smith; 2014); administrative support (e.g., Meyer, 2008); and sociopolitical contexts of school communities (Shelton, 2015) influence how educators respond as issues emerge in their contexts. Few studies have examined educators’ on-going processes of negotiation that also importantly shape their movement toward becoming gender and sexual diversity (GSD) inclusive. This research aims to fill that gap.

Data Sources and Analysis
Part of a larger study, this year-long qualitative study unfolded over one academic year, largely in the context of a collaborative teacher inquiry group that we (Authors) organized and led. Here, we focus on three participants: one kindergarten and one first-grade teacher who shared a school site and an administrator from another elementary school. Taking Meyer et al.’s concept of GSD-inclusive education as our starting point, and guided by queer (Britzman, 1995; Luhmann, 1998) and anti-oppressive (Kumashiro, 2000) theories of education, we “thought with theory” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) as we explored what was involved as participants endeavored to become GSD-inclusive.

To understand the emotional, intellectual, personal, and professional contours of participants’ processes, we examined these data sources: 1) interview transcripts from the beginning, middle, and end of the year; 2) transcripts of audio-recorded discussions from eight inquiry group gatherings; 3) participants’ written reflections; 4) participant-generated curriculum; and 5) researchers’ year-long reflections. Our analysis involved reading and coding these texts and noting patterns, themes, tensions, and inconsistencies in and across data sources.

Findings and Conclusions
As participants cultivated commitments to GSD-inclusive education, their journeys were marked by crucial touchstones that indicated growth and development, as well as challenge. Salient themes included: the importance of professional community and ongoing support; examining personal biases and assumptions in relation to GSD and other issues of equity; discomfort as productive tension; and context as shaping participants’ perceptions about what’s possible in their school communities.

Research resoundingly calls on educators to organize safe, affirming classrooms in which GSD can thrive, but there are few portraits that depict what’s involved as they prepare to do that work. We argue that engaging with and learning from educators in their processes of becoming GSD-inclusive is critical to understanding what they need in order to make good on democratic promises of education and to create learning contexts that support a vibrant, diverse democracy.

Authors

• Bethy Leonardi, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Sara Staley, University of Colorado - Boulder