English Classrooms and Curricular Justice for the Recognition of LGBT Individuals: What Can Teachers Do?
Vol
Australian Journal of Teacher Education
Jane Pearce 0 1
0 Murdoch University
1 Wendy Cumming-Potvin Murdoch University
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Article 5
English Classrooms and Curricular Justice for the Recognition of LGBT
Individuals: What Can Teachers Do?
Jane Pearce Wendy Cumming-Potvin Murdoch University
Introduction
The Australian Human Rights Commission (2015) acknowledges that lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals should benefit from all human rights, including
freedom from violence, harassment and bullying. Yet despite improvements in human rights
with respect to diversity in gender and sexuality over the past two decades, such as marriage
equality legislation in 21 countries
(SBS, 2015)
and the legal recognition of an individual’s
intersex status in Australia
(Australian Government, 2013)
, discrimination against LGBT
individuals in Australia remains unacceptable in terms of social attitudes, policies and
practices
(Australian Human Rights Commission, 2015)
. Schools, in particular, can be hostile
or threatening places for sexuality and gender diverse young people, with students who are,
or seem to be, sexuality or gender diverse experiencing a range of marginalising practices
such as name-calling, bullying and other forms of harassment and violence
(Taylor, Peter,
Campbell, Meyer, Ristock & Short, 2015; Ullman, 2015)
. There is clear evidence that an
unwelcoming school climate and exclusionary school practices have negative consequences
for the wellbeing, mental health and educational achievement of LGBT young people
(Greytak, Kosciw & Diaz, 2009; Hillier, Jones, Monagle, Overton, Gahan, Blackman &
Mitchell, 2010; Kosciw, Greytak, Boesen, Bartkiewicz & Palmer, 2011; Robinson, Bansel,
Denson, Ovenden & Davies, 2014)
. Such consequences range from failure to complete
schooling to homelessness, risk taking behaviours and attempted suicide
(Pallotta-Chiarolli,
2005; Igbal, 2011)
.
Given the crucial role that schools play in framing the experiences of all young
people, whether sexuality or gender diverse or not, a question arises with respect to what
1 In reference to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the acronym LGBT is used in this manuscript. Whilst we
appreciate that different terms such as LGBTQI may be used for people who may not self-identify as heterosexual and/or
cisgendered, in this article we limit the terminology to LGBT given that teacher participants spoke only about this group of
students.
schools and teachers can and should do to respond to the widespread lack of social justice for
LGBT young people in schools. This article explores how a group of high school English
teachers, who have self-identified as aiming to practise in ways that are socially just
(particularly with respect to LGBT students), make sense of this aspect of their work. The
article focuses, first, on how these teachers understand or make sense of what is happening
for LGBT young people, and then on the teachers’ experiences of working for social justice
in their own classrooms. 2
Conceptualising Social Justice in Education
Social justice aims to make the systems and structure of society more just by
removing those barriers that may prevent the basic human rights of individuals or groups in a
society being met. Underpinning the need for socially just practices is the understanding that
individual access to human rights is not equitable, and that barriers exist that prevent certain
individuals or groups of people from receiving equitable treatment
(United Nations, 2016)
.
Socially just practices are attempts to redress such inequities by both identifying barriers to
social justice for particular groups of people and working to remove them. Social justice may
focus on broader, systemic or institutional barriers to equitable treatment, or may work on a
more individual level by paying attention to and acting in solidarity with ‘those who are
disadvantaged and excluded in society’
(Ho, 2011, p. 10)
.
As a concept in the field of education, social justice has undergone several shifts in
meaning as commentators move from redistribution as the main focus
(Rawls, 1971; Sen,
2000, 2010)
to the idea that the focus of social justice should be recognizing the systemic
processes by which marginalisation and mistreatment affect culturally defined groups
(North,
2006; Smyth, 2011)
. The significance of institutional and systemic practices of
marginalisation and mistreatment is identified by Young (1990; 2001), whose work on the
politics of difference (1990) has been influential in highlighting the way ‘institutionalized
forms [of oppression and domination] are built into the taken-for-granted norms, rules, skills
and values of social institutions’
(North, 2006, p. 510)
. This perspec (...truncated)