Exploring Professional Development Models for LGBTQIA+-Inclusive and Gender-Expansive Pedagogy

• In Event: Gender-Expansive and Democratizing Teacher Education: Envisioning Teaching and Teacher Education for Intersectional Justice

Abstract

Objectives
In this project we explore best practices for LGBTQIA+ inclusive professional learning, considering how we might establish sustained professional development that empower educators to identify and incorporate LGBTQIA+ inclusion and affirmation in their school settings. We provide resources that allow educators to build their understanding of LGBTQIA+ identity and what it means to be inclusive in classrooms, aiming for collective knowledge building through collaborative work and inquiry. We also identify specific structures that can be employed within schools to create affirming spaces for queer students and sustained change.

Perspectives
This project brings together insights from queer pedagogy and queer theory’s impulse to unsettle and question of norms. Queer theory asks educators to engage in queer pedagogy; that is, to challenge the ways that pedagogical practices often uphold norms and normative views in educational spaces (Shlasko, 2006). This requires a reframing of educational content away from the traditional white male perspective, to call in identities of diverse races, genders, and sexualities (Pinar, 2003, p. 358). Queer theory asks educators to challenge the emphasis on what we teach and to shift towards thinking about how learning is produced in the first place. In this work we engage queer perspectives to consider ways that educators are implementing LGBTQIA+ inclusive and gender-expansive pedagogy in their classrooms and schools.

Modes of inquiry
For this work we carried out a literature review on professional development practices and training as they relate to cultivating LGBTQIA+ inclusive and affirming learning environments. We also drew on reflections about our own teaching practices, our observations of in-service and pre-service teachers teaching, and our experiences as a public secondary school teacher and a professor in a teacher education and credentialing program as well as our own experiences in teacher professional development.

Data sources
Our data consists of research and literature in the field, professional development training models, and our reflections and observations on teaching practice. One of us has been a high school teacher for the last six years and more recently finished their teaching credential; One of us has taught in teacher education for the last ten years, carried out research projects with teachers, and has taught for over twenty years. Our experiences and reflections on teaching greatly inform our work.

Conclusions
In this project we explore long term professional development models that enable a sustained focus on gender, equity and inclusion. We examine ways that school personnel address the inclusion of people of all genders both reactively and proactively. We identify some best practices for sustaining LGBTQIA+ inclusion and affirmation in school communities over time.

Scholarly significance
This work has implications for teaching practice and professional development for educators. This project’s insight informs LGBTQIA+ inclusive and gender-expansive pedagogy in teacher education as well.

Authors

• Providence Ryan, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Susan Walker Woolley, Colgate University
  Presenting Author