Theorizing Leaders' (In)Actions on Behalf of Queer People in Schools

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

Abstract

Creating safer schools for LGBTQQ and gender creative youth requires supportive adult personnel, beyond classroom teachers. Both large-scale regional (Szalacha, 2003) and national (Kosciw, Greytak, Barkiewicz, Boesen, & Palmer, 2012) studies confirm that the support of key administrators is critical to creating safer schools because school leaders play a key role in setting district policy, establishing the tone of particular buildings, and creating a positive, safe, and accepting environment for queer young people. Superintendents and school board members have significant opportunities to affect policies on sexual identity and gender expression, shaping how LGBTQQ and gender creative youth, as well as queer families, will experience a district as welcoming, or not. Principals and assistant principals are key leadership figures at the building level, enforcing and modeling for teachers and students the expected behaviors and community values. And non-instructional personnel, like coaches, counselors, and school secretaries also shape the culture of the school and affect the leadership dynamic. These adults are often the people who provide essential support to young people in schools, including queer youth. However, they may also be the ones who lead some students, teachers, parents, and community members to dismiss the needs, feelings, and lived experiences of queer youth and families. Through interviews with administrators and other adult personnel, we set out to understand the factors that matter most in determining their support/non-support of queer youth and families in schools. We conducted 22 interviews with school personnel whose primary job was not classroom teaching. These included principals, assistant principals, school counselors, school social workers, coaches, athletic directors, board of education members, and superintendents. All of these administrators and staff professionals worked in urban, suburban, and small town schools, both public and public charter, and all were in a midwestern state, with most concentrated in or around a large, midwestern city. Data included audiotaped and transcribed interviews. Interviews were coded and analyzed using a grounded approach and constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Overall, we found that organizational goals and norms (Orasanu & Connolly, 1993) were a key factor in whether and how adult personnel supported queer youth and families. These varied by school structure, by school and district location, and by perceptions of community mores and and the sense of allegiance that adults felt toward either maintaining or disrupting the status quo. Other key factors included participants’ views on expertise, authority, and knowledge related to gender identity and sexuality; their views on school leadership; and their views related to difference and diversity (Hallinger, 2013; Paris & Winn, 2014; Shields, 2004; Harding, 2004). In this paper, drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), we theorize when and how these factors function as “lines of force” versus “lines of flight.” Drawing on a subset of our data corpus, we present two narratives of adult personnel as they perform knowing, own and deflect power and privilege, and negotiate the risks and vulnerabilities related to acting and not acting on behalf of queer youth and families in schools.

Authors

• Caroline T. Clark, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Jill Marie Williams, The Ohio State University - Columbus