English Classrooms and Curricular Justice for the Recognition of LGBT Individuals: What Can Teachers Do?

Australian Journal of Teacher Education, Sep 2017

Discrimination against LGBT[1] individuals remains widespread across Australia. Since schools continue to promote regimes of heterosexuality and cis-normativity, teachers have a crucial role in creating contexts in which LGBT young people feel accepted and safe. Drawing on North’s (2006) work on social justice and Connell’s (2012) discussion of curricular justice, this article explores opportunities and constraints experienced by a group of English secondary teachers attempting to practise in socially just ways. Results indicate that through the English curriculum, it is possible for teachers to find moments to achieve social justice for LGBT individuals. [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.

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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 Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, and the Other Education Commons Recommended Citation - 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)


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Jane Pearce, Wendy Cumming-Potvin. English Classrooms and Curricular Justice for the Recognition of LGBT Individuals: What Can Teachers Do?, Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 2017, Volume 42, Issue 9,