What About the Parents? An Analysis of How LGBTQ-Inclusive Elementary Teachers Navigated Resistant Parents

• In Event: 21.048 - Current Perspectives on Queering Elementary Education, Research, and Practice

Abstract

One of the most common responses from pre- and in-service teachers when discussing the inclusion of LGBTQ-topics in elementary school classrooms is worry about parents (Clark, 2010; Thein, 2013). While parental objections to LGBTQ-inclusive teaching may take myriad forms (Ring, 2015; Smith, 2006), there is a gap in the literature regarding the kinds of responses a teacher might provide to a resisting parent. This paper addresses that gap by considering the following questions about how two teachers responded to parental resistance to their queer-inclusive instruction in their upper elementary classrooms:
● What kind of parental resistance did they face, if any?
● In what ways did they navigate parental resistance to LGBTQ-inclusive teaching?
● What informed how they responded to this resistance?

We draw on critical frameworks (Lewison, Leland, and Harste, 2015) to consider how power circulates with regard to multiple and intersecting identities ranging from LGBT and queer identities to how identities such as “parent” or “teacher” position the kinds of questions and responses parents and teachers pose. Likewise, queer theory (Britzman, 1995; Butler, 1999; Foucault, 1995) helps us understand why discussions of gender and sexuality become marked as deviant, particularly in elementary school classrooms.

Data come from a long-term, multi-site, ethnographic instrumental case study (Stake, 2008) project of LGBTQ-inclusive elementary teaching in two Midwestern cities. Linda and Fern, are both white, veteran 4th/5thgrade teachers with over 20 years of experience. Linda is a lesbian and teaches at a racially and economically diverse public school in a large urban district. Fern is straight and teaches at a small private school in a small city. Data sources include field notes from participant observations, interview transcripts, and written reflections from the teachers provided to the researchers.

The potential for parental resistance to their LGBTQ-inclusive teaching - and their fear of what might happen if it occurred - informed Linda and Fern’s choices at many points in their pedagogical processes. These include their curriculum and lesson planning, their interactions and accommodations of individual students, and their approach to any parents’ concerns as a conversation. Linda and Fern’s vision of their role as critical literacy educators proved to be hugely influential in establishing how they thought about and negotiated their curriculum and possible parental resistance to their teaching. Central to both teachers’ critical literacy lens was a critique of power (Dozier, Johnston, & Rogers, 2006; Janks, 2000). To Fern and Linda, parents who resisted LGBTQ-inclusive teaching represent status quo power relations that deny equality to those deemed outside of typically-represented identities. In their interactions with resistant parents, Linda and Fern lay bare this notion through their language, choices, and expectations, even as they accounted for the ways that parents in their community understood power and the place of power in the classroom.

These data reveal more nuanced notions of the relationship between parents and LGBTQ-inclusive teaching than currently exist for many pre- and in-service teachers. Therefore, they help to create new narratives about what stances they might take in relation to families and LGBTQ topics.

Authors

• Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth, Western Michigan University

• Caitlin Law Ryan, East Carolina University