Awareness to Action: Educator Journeys Toward Support of LGBT Youth

Panel Title: Awareness to Action: Educator Journeys Toward Support of LGBT Youth, American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver CO: 2010.

Panel Abstract: This panel explores the complicated work of creating safe and affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth. The participants in these studies are educators—both pre- and in-service—who have participated in educational programs designed to strengthen their confidence and ability to engage in support and advocacy for students who are too often pushed to the margins of their school environments. Participants represent educators at various stages of their careers exploring their biases, becoming aware of school policies and procedures that privilege heterosexual identities, and coming face-to-face with the realities of resisting heteronormative tradition. The three papers in this symposium present work occurring in one School of Education that aims to empower educators to resist the schooling practices that privilege heterosexual identities and allow the harassment of queer students to go unquestioned, if not unnoticed (Macgillivray, 2000). We aim to explore educators’ growing awareness of the risks LGBTQ students face, examinations of their own biases and negotiation of their own roles and responsibilities to make schools safer. We intend to give voice to educators’ articulations of their knowledge and awareness of LGBTQ issues in schools and the emotional qualities of their engagement in social justice work in the context of creating affirming environments for LGBTQ youth. Their narratives create opportunities for exploring educators’ feelings about advocating for LGBTQ youth and their perceptions of their ability to do so in public schools. The impetus for this research lies in the consistent reports from LGBTQ students that they are not safe in school (GLSEN 2007), the well-established correlation between in-school harassment/isolation and risk (Bontempo & D’Augelli, 2002) and each panelist’s experiences in schools where efforts to bring LGBTQ identities out of the shadows are threatened, restricted or banned. Therefore, this research presents our attempts to (a) engage educators in conversations and educational experiences that will empower them to create change; and (b) examine their narratives—written and spoken—that emerged upon their engagement with the issues related to sexual and gender diversity in schools.

This panel addresses the experiences of educators at various stages of their careers—from pre-service to long-tenured educators—as they engage with the daily manifestations of heterosexism and confront homophobic practices. In some cases, we will present examples of educators articulating shifts in their conceptualizations of the school experiences of LGBTQ youth, their understandings of their roles as educators, and their changing perspectives of the hierarchy of power in their schools. In other cases, teachers’ engagement with LGBTQ issues served as an affirmation of what they already knew about their responsibilities and the contexts in which they work.

Although violence intervention is a vital step toward creating safer school environments, focusing efforts to counteract homophobia and violence solely on intervention in harassment narrowly defines LGBT youth as victims who need protection rather than students who deserve inclusive educational spaces to learn and grow. Anti-bullying training fails to adequately equip educators to support LGBT youth, and these studies offer new pedagogical approaches to engaging educators in self-reflection and providing tools for action. The collection of scholarship in this symposium reinforces the need for education and professional support across their careers as necessary for empowering educators to engage in social justice work. In-service educators’ narratives of engagement indicate that knowledge and resources are imperative, but even when they have these tools there is no guarantee that school leadership will support their caring efforts. Furthermore, this work serves as a call for deeper investigation into the role school administrators play in promoting or prohibiting supportive school cultures.