LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

Past research on gender and LGBTQ issues in K-12 and teacher education has primarily focused on identifying ways of fostering inclusive and affirmative school communities for non-cis and/or queer students and enabling learning contexts to promote academic learning. Much of this work has attended to theorizing pedagogies and curricula conducive towards such an aim. Yet, despite legal advances for gender equity and LGBTQ rights in diverse global contexts and the increased visibility of LGBTQ issues in mainstream media, non-cis and queer individuals (especially those of color) continue to experience violence, face housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and the denial of service in public businesses. In light of the numerous growing conservative movements to not only roll back legal advances for LGBTQ individuals, but to also promote a culture of homophobia and transphobia, scholars must attend to the myriad ways in which members of the school community can counter such efforts, and how the multiple facets of the educative experience can be conceptualized beyond a paradigm that continues to marginalize gender diverse and LGBTQ individuals. This volume, Exploring Gender and LGBTQ Issues in K12 and Teacher Education: A Rainbow Assemblage, edited by Adrian D. Martin and Kathryn J. Strom, provides examples of empirical inquiries and theorizations that explore how schools can function as more than safe academic environments for gender diverse and LGBTQ students. The contributing authors attend to classrooms and educative contexts as spaces that promote the affirmative inclusion of not only LGBTQ students, but other education stakeholders as well with the aim to dismantle homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and other hate-based ideologies. The volume serves as an insightful and useful resource for educators, teacher educators, and education researchers engaged in inquiry and pedagogy towards systems of schooling unencumbered by heteronormativity other hate-based ideologies with implications for future professional practice.

Why does queer leadership matter? In this book, the first of its kind, 15 LGBTQ presidents and chancellors in higher education provide insight into their experiences and highlight the importance of queer leadership for the academy and the world. Prior to this century, there were few known gay or lesbian presidents in North American higher education. Mary Emma Wooley, president of Mount Holyoke College from 1901 to 1937, is documented because her life on campus with her partner, Jeanette Marks, is described in their love letters, which have been recently curated. Jacquelyn A. Mattfeld, president of Barnard College from 1976 to 1980, rarely receives recognition for braving sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia during her presidency. Theodora J. Kalikow, president of University of Maine Farmington from 1994 to 2012, bridges the few early examples to the era of contributors to this volume. In LGBTQ Leadership in Higher Education, Raymond Crossman brings together 15 currently serving or retired LGBTQ presidents and chancellors in higher education to explain why, to whom, and how LGBTQ leadership matters. Writing from the perspective of their lived and specific experiences as LGBTQ presidents, these current and former leaders consider whether there is something distinctive about LGBTQ leadership. They also attempt to draw insights and principles from their personal stories. In addition, the book considers a profound question: Is being queer a superpower for these leaders, something they manage as part of their intersectional identities, or is it just another attribute of accomplished leaders? In essays ranging across 12 topics, including intersectionality, mentorship, feminism, self-care, coming out, heteronormativity, and partners and spouses, the authors address why LGBTQ leadership matters at this moment, and more broadly, why diversity, inclusion, and equity in leadership are important to meet today's challenges for higher education and human rights. The first book on this topic, LGBTQ Leadership in Higher Educationsimultaneously archives a moment that is the forerunner to new, enormous, and necessary evolutions in the practice of leadership. Contributors: Terry L. Allison, Peggy Apple, Nancy "Rusty" Barceló, Raymond E. Crossman, Erika Endrijonas, James Gandre, Richard J. Helldobler, Susan E. Henking, Ralph J. Hexter, Theodora J. Kalikow, Daniel López, Jr., Charles R. Middleton, DeRionne Pollard, Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, Regina Stanback Stroud, Boris Thomas, Karen M. Whitney

Mad River, Marjorie Rowland, and the Quest for LGBTQ Teachers' Rights addresses an important legal case that set the stage for today's LGBTQ civil rights-a case that almost no one has heard of. Marjorie Rowland v. Mad River School District involves an Ohio guidance counselor fired in 1974 for being bisexual. Rowland's case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices declined to consider it. In a spectacular published dissent, Justice Brennan laid out arguments for why the First and Fourteenth Amendments apply to bisexuals, gays, and lesbians. That dissent has been the foundation for LGBTQ civil rights advances since.   In the first in-depth treatment of this foundational legal case, authors Margaret A. Nash and Karen L. Graves tell the story of that case and of Marjorie Rowland, the pioneer who fought for employment rights for LGBTQ educators and who paid a heavy price for that fight. It brings the story of LGBTQ educators' rights to the present, including commentary on Bostock v Clayton County, the 2020 Supreme Court case that struck down employment discrimination against LGBT workers.  

Many schools have failed to create a nurturing educational environment for LGBTQ students. Our Children are Your Students features a discussion about the various tactics that LGBTQ families use to work with schools that don't anticipate the arrival of their families and children. The book features a verbatim theatre script called Out at School, which is based on interviews conducted with 37 LGBTQ families about their experiences in school. The families live in four different cities in the province of Ontario as well as in the suburbs and rural communities surrounding them. Written by Tara Goldstein, Jenny Salisbury, and Pam Baer, the play contains 22 scenes of verbatim monologues and dialogues. A set of images created by visual artist benjamin lee hicks accompanies each scene. The play also contains three original songs composed by musician Kate Reid, who draws on a number of the themes embedded in the scenes. Links to performances of the songs and to the artwork can be seen on the LGBTQ Families Speak Out project website: www.lgbtqfamiliesspeakout.ca. This is an important book for teachers and pre-service teachers who are interested in creating inclusive classroom environments for all students. Perfect for courses such as: School and Society | Social Foundations of Education | Multicultural Education | Critical Pedagogy | Inclusive Education | Gender, Sexuality, & Schooling

LGBTQ+ advocacy and support continues to be a priority in the U.S. higher education, and recent research shows this as a critical population who continues to be marginalized and mistreated on college and university campuses. Over the last few decades there has been significant research describing how LGBTQ students experience higher education and highlighting that these students are not graduating or succeeding at the same rates as the general population. However, few if any research studies or articles address LGBTQ advocacy on community college campuses. There are more than 1,000 community colleges in the U.S. Even with the extraordinary number of students that the community college system educates, approximately 15 institutions nationally have paid staff to provide LGBTQ services to students. That being said, community colleges are now putting a larger emphasis on understanding and supporting this community. For example, The California Community College (CCC) system's 116 colleges now require all campuses to create a plan on how to improve success rates of LGBTQ+ students. The CCC is the largest higher education system in the country serving over 2 million students. This comprehensive practitioner focused book will combine relevant research and guidance on practices to aid colleges in establishing services and programs to build effective LGBTQ+ services on their college campuses.

This book brings together leading scholars researching the field of gender, sexuality, schooling, queer activism, and social movements within different cultural contexts. With contributions from more than fifteen countries, the chapters bring fresh insights for students and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, education, and social movements in the Global North and South. The book draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions offering rich and multidisciplinary essays from scholars and activists in the field focusing on outreach work of QSM (Queer Social Movements) in schools, queer activism in educational settings, and the role of QSMs in supporting and informing queer youth.

This book explores how to help teachers become better advocates for sexual orientation equality in secondary schools. Examining this issue through the lens of qualitative emancipatory action research, a group of Australian teachers embarked on a journey of teacher advocacy. Critical theory has long highlighted teachers as key players in either challenging dominant social narratives, or else perpetuating oppressive systems of power through traditional forms of education. Despite this important role, the life stories of teachers, which contributed to the development of their beliefs and behaviours about sexual orientation are rarely considered in the development of anti-discriminatory policy, designing the curriculum and most importantly, in teacher training. This book suggests and frames a model for advocacy, whereby teachers engage with their personal beliefs about sexual orientation, with their role as a teacher, and commit to advocacy through action by promoting student safety, challenging heteronormative narratives and role modelling compassionate behaviours in their school environments.

Teacher educators have opportunities to include issues of multicultural education, equity, and social justice in the work done with preservice teachers. Including the educational and societal experiences of historically marginalized populations in curriculum creates spaces for teacher educators to model multicultural and social justice based pedagogies, while preparing teachers to work with and work for these students. The aim of this book is to support teacher educators as they engage in the work of preparing pre-service teacher to work with and work for LGBTQ youth through explicit discussions of gender and sexuality. Chapters for this book include personal anecdotes regarding shifts in author's thinking about including LGBTQ as a part of teacher preparation; specific pedagogical practices employed by authors to present LGBTQ focused material as a part of their coursework; the resistance authors have faced from students, parents and administration and their responses.

In The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books, Jennifer Miller identifies an archive of over 150 English-language children's picture books that explicitly represent LGBTQ+ identities, expressions, and issues. This archive is then analyzed to explore the evolution of LGBTQ+ characters and content from the 1970s to the present. Miller describes dominant tropes that emerge in the field to analyze historical shifts in representational practices, which she suggests parallel larger sociocultural shifts in the visibility of LGBTQ+ identities. Additionally, Miller considers material constraints and possibilities affecting the production, distribution, and consumption of LGBTQ+ children's picture books from the 1970s to the present. This foundational work defines the field of LGBTQ+ children's picture books thoroughly, yet accessibly. In addition to laying the groundwork for further research, The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books presents a reading lens, critical optimism, used to analyze the transformative potential of LGBTQ+ children's picture books. Many texts remain attached to heteronormative family forms and raced and classed models of success. However, by considering what these books put into the world, as well as problematic aspects of the world reproduced within them, Miller argues that LGBTQ+ children's picture books are an essential world-making project and seek to usher in a transformed world as well as a significant historical archive that reflects material and representational shifts in dominant and subcultural understandings of gender and sexuality.

While more trans students, faculty, and staff have come out on US college campuses today than ever before, many still report enduring harassment and discrimination. Others avoid disclosing their gender identity because they do not feel safe or comfortable at their schools. This groundbreaking book is the first to address their experiences in a single volume. Genny Beemyn brings together personal narratives and original research to give readers both individual and large-scale perspectives, which provide unprecedented insight into the experiences of trans people in higher education. These contributions reveal that despite an improving environment, trans people continue to face widespread interpersonal and institutional opposition on campuses across the country.Some of the first published research focusing on nonbinary trans undergraduates and trans graduate students is included here, in addition to the most comprehensive research to date of trans students at women's colleges and of trans academics. Trans People in Higher Education also examines the sexual health of trans students, the treatment of trans people by individuals with institutional authority, and the strategies and lessons learned from one college that successfully became more trans inclusive.