LGBTQ+ Educators' Visions for Social Change: Critical Participatory Action Research for Liberatory Transformation

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Queer Social Change: Transformative Actions and Games for Social Change

Abstract

This paper shares results from a critical participatory action research project with and for Vermont LGBTQ+ educators. Ten co-researchers who self-identify as LGBTQ+ began investigating the question “How do LGBTQ+ co-researchers narrate and embody the process of social change for inclusivity in schools?” To answer this question, we met to discuss our collective visions for systems in which LGBTQ+ educators are included, centered, and honored. In our first interviews, co-researchers asked each other how to achieve liberatory culture in PK-12 schools, focusing on enablers/facilitators, barriers/constraints, and action plans for LGBTQ+ inclusivity in education systems. Results suggest that we envision diverse mechanisms for change within unjust school systems, but that fear is a structure through which we envision enacting social transformation.

Authors

• Hannah K. Miller (she/her), Northern Vermont University

• Delilah Jane Kramer, Northern Vermont University

• Nicole R Wallace, Northern Vermont University

• Rhy wepāloki

• Heather Ann O'Dell, Fairfield Center School

• Gabriel Ely, Northern Vermont University

• William R. Freed, Mount Mansfield Union High School