Increasing LGBTQ Acceptance in Secondary Schools

• In Event: Queering Learning and Teaching for/With Youth

Abstract

In this qualitative study, we examined school characteristics that support LGBTQ students through the lens of four early college high schools (ECHS) in Texas. Using queer theory to analyze ways that ECHS culture countered heteronormativity, findings revealed how these ECHSs functioned as safe and accepting spaces for sizable populations of queer youth, even in a restrictive state policy context. We suggest that because ECHSs were not intentionally designed to serve LGBTQ students—yet served them well—the characteristics of acceptance embodied by ECHS staff are especially transferrable to other school environments.

Authors

• Dustin Hornbeck, The University of Memphis

• Julia Cassman Duncheon, University of Washington