Queering LGBTQ Ally Identity: The Contradictions and Complexities of Being an Effective Teacher Ally

• In Event: 52.051 - They/She/He/Us: Provocative Teacher Alliances With the Gender Identities of Students

Abstract

Despite significant shifts in American politics and society, LGBTQ students remain a vulnerable population. Teacher allies are essential to LGBTQ students’ support and success. However, little research explores the contradictions that teachers experience in and the complexities inherent in forging ally identities. This four-year longitudinal qualitative study examined teachers’ initial understandings of allyhood as dichotomous and their developing considerations, over the course of the study, of how their efforts to serve LGBTQ students were at times at-odds with their teacher education programs, existent literature, political and sociocultural factors, and their own expectations. This study seeks to broaden understandings of teacher ally identity, in order to more fully explore and embrace the contradictory natures of being an effective LGBTQ ally.

Author

• Stephanie Anne Shelton, The University of Alabama