"Sometimes It's Hard to Do the Right Thing": From Gender-Inclusive to Resistant Leadership Approaches to Gender-Diversity Reforms

• In Event: Ensuring Inclusive Education: Gender, Culture, and Community

Abstract

This paper traces administrators' understanding of the legal and policy protections for trans and gender-expansive students. In order to adhere to educational policies, administrators must know the reform initiative exists, understand the goals and target of the reform, and have the resources to achieve these goals. We use interview data from 36 PK12 district-level administrators across a diverse Midwestern state to assess factors influencing administrators’ sensemaking process. We find that administrators’ understanding of gender-diversity educational reforms fell along a spectrum from gender-inclusive to emerging to resistant. Implications are discussed regarding policy dissemination and implementation processes that should be involved in future federal policy reforms concerning transgender students and staff in PK-12 schools.

Authors

• Mollie McQuillan, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Lydia Gandy-Fastovich, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Janel Anderson, Gonzaga University
  Non-Presenting Author