How Can Social Justice Leaders Build Gender-Inclusive Schools? Suggestions From Gender-Diverse Voices

• In Event: 61.048 - Reframing That Opens Space for Social Justice Leadership

Abstract

This paper highlights findings from a larger project documenting gender diverse experiences in K-12 schools and offering suggestions for building gender-inclusive environments. Suggestions specific to the role educational leaders play in constructing these environments are presented. Framed through a poststructural lens, which challenges normalcy and universalism and aims to transform oppressive practices, this inquiry highlights the perspectives of gender diverse individuals in order to make suggestions for improvement across practices, policies, and systems. Findings related to actions social justice leaders can take to improve schools with gender in mind are organized across six themes: Education; Protecting Students; Gendered Facilities; Gendered Microaggressions; Language Matters; and Dress Codes. Implications for practice and significance to the field are discussed.

Author

• Katherine Lewis, Dominican University of California