Queer Parents Seeking and Creating Welcoming Schools

• In Event: Conducting Activist, Collaborative Research: Sustained Teacher Inquiry on Sexual Identity and Gender Expression in Schools

Abstract

Parents who are themselves (Casper & Schultz, 1999; Garner, 2004; Goldberg, 2010; Pallotta-Chiarelli, 2010) or who have LGBTQQ or gender creative children often feel fearful, unwelcomed, or silenced in their children’s schools (Fischer & Kennedy, 2012; Kozik-Rosabal, 2000; Lipkin, 1999; Walling, 1996). Given these issues, and given that the problems of sexual identity- and gender-based hostility and abuse persist in school environments, this paper strives to answer the following research questions: How do queer parents of diverse students, particularly diverse in terms of sexual identity and gender expression, select and establish a presence at schools? Further, what are the ways these parents act and react in these schools to make them better places for LGBTQQ people? Purposive sampling (Patton, 1990) was used in order to identify information-rich cases that exemplify the key foci of our inquiry. Data included audiotaped and transcribed interviews. Interviews were coded and analyzed using a grounded approach and constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Although we conducted interviews with straight identifying parents of LGBTQQ students, we decided to focus on the subset of interviews that focuses on queer parents because we have something important to learn from parents who have insights on being queer based on their own experiences that might inform their experiences of and interactions with K-12 schools. These data include 14 interviews representing 12 families and comprising 19 parents (including step parents). They also include two members of the teacher inquiry group and authors of this paper, who are actively raising children in same-sex headed households. Most of these participants are white women, although there were four white men, including one transman, and one African American woman. Based on these data, we found that queer parents actively sought schools that they understood as safe havens for queer people by touring schools, asking direct questions, and noticing subtlities in responses to their questions. When the children of these parents got to the schools, some worked to be visible, by being active or kind, whereas others strove to be invisible by blending in and being “normal.” More specifically, they were called to act by providing teachers with resources, being positioned as experts on topics pertinent to LGBTQQ people, and attending to students who are vulnerable to homphobic abuse. There situations challenged these parents to react to homophobia in the schools. These parents interrogated heteronormativity and called out homophobia, but these efforts were constrained by parents picking their battles and feeling like they had to wait until after the school year, when their children could not be penalized by the teacher who the parent interrogated or called out. These findings point to ways queer parents can work on behalf of their families in schools but also how allies might complement their efforts, whether these allies are parents, teachers, and/or administrators.

Authors

• Mollie V. Blackburn, The Ohio State University

• Lane Vanderhule, Hilliard Davidson High School