Making Sense of LGBTQ-Related Policies and Practices: A Computational Analysis of Teacher Reddit Discourse

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 30. Gender, Schooling, and Society pt. 2

Abstract

Political intervention and public scrutiny of LGBTQ-related policies and practices in education have increased in recent years producing an unstable institutional environment that teachers must navigate. This study employs an inhabited institutionalist and framing approach to assess how political disruptions impact teachers’ interpretations of LGBTQ-related policies and practices in K-12 education. Drawing on 29,053 submissions and comments from four teaching-related subreddits posted between 2010 and 2024, I apply structural topic modeling and network analysis to identify prominent interpretive frames. Preliminary results reveal that while teachers predominantly rely on a professional frame to interpret LGBTQ-related policies and practices, they employ a political frame to interpret student behaviors, professional capacities, and policy noncompliance.

Author

• Emma Rudd, University of Illinois-Chicago