Social Context of Schooling

February 22, 2016

LGBTQ+ ISSUES
Ashley, Breanna, Cayley, Krista, Taryn, & Whitney

Alberta Guidelines for

Best Practices:
1. Providing supports that respond to a
students individual needs.
2. Respecting an individuals right to selfidentification.
3. Maintaining school records in a way that
respects privacy and confidentiality.
4. Ensuring dress codes respect an
individuals gender identity and gender
expression.
5. Minimizing gender-segregated activities.
6. Enabling students with diverse sexual
orientations, gender identities and gender
expressions to have full, safe and
equitable participation in curricular and
extra-curricular activities.
7. Providing safe access to washroom and
change-room facilities.
8. Providing professional learning
opportunities that build the capacity of
staff to understand and support diverse
sexual orientations, gender identities and
gender expressions.
9. Using a comprehensive whole-school
approach to promote healthy
relationships and prevent and respond to
bullying behaviour.
10.Ensuring students have the
understanding, skills and opportunities to
contribute to welcoming, caring,
respectful and safe learning environments
that respect diversity and nurture a sense
of belonging and a positive sense of self.
11.Ensuring all families are welcomed and
supported as valued members of the
school community.
12.Ensuring that school staff have work
environments where they are protected
from discrimination based on their sexual
orientations, gender identities and gender
expressions.

How might educators most

appropriately respond to the
needs of LGBTQ+ students?

By respecting students and their rights

By accepting students self-identified sexual

orientation, gender, or gender expression

By treating all individuals with dignity and respect

By allowing students to be open about who they are

By respecting a students privacy and confidentiality

By understanding and respecting the terminology

By creating and promoting safe and welcoming

schools

By minimizing oppression through the

implementation of LGBTQ+ resources

By incorporating sexuality throughout curriculum

By encouraging sta to engage in professional

development

By supporting or creating a GSA or QSA

By introducing and using literature that includes

LGBTQ+ characters and issues

By looking at straight literature through a queer lens

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Social Context of Schooling

LGBTQ+
Literature:

When Everything
Feels Like the
Movies by Raziel
Reid
And Tango Makes
Three by Justin
Richardson &
Peter Parnell
None of the
Above by I.W.
Gregorio
The Art of Being
Normal by Lisa
Williamson
More Happy than
Not by Adam
Silvera
Skim by Jillian and
Mariko Tamaki
Me Being Me is
Exactly as Insane
as You Being You
by Todd HasakLowry
Honey Girl by Lisa
Freeman
The Boy Who
Cried Fabulous by
Leslea Newman
Better Nate Than
Ever by Tim
Federle
I am Jazz by
Jessica Herthel
Books that have
won:
Lambda Literary
Award for
Childrens and
YA Literature
American
Library
Associations
Stonewall Book
Awards

February 22, 2016

General Terms:
Sex: the biological sex assigned at birth (male, female, intersex)
Gender: attitudes, feelings and behaviours that a given culture associates with
a persons biological sex
Gender Identity: ones sense of self as male, female, transgender, etc.
Gender Expression: the way an individual acts to communicate gender
within their given culture (includes clothing, interests, etc.)
Sexual Orientation: the sex of those to whom one is sexually and
romantically attracted.
Gay: men who are attracted to men
Lesbian: women who are attracted to women
Bisexual: an individual that is attracted to two genders (usually male and
female, but not always)
Transgender: an individual whose biological sex does not match their gender
identity
Cisgender: an individual whose biological sex matches their gender identity
Queer: An umbrella term for all individuals that do not identify as
heterosexual and cisgender
(+): Any other sexuality or gender identity that fits under the queer umbrella

LGBTQ+ Statistics
70% of students reported hearing expressions such as thats so gay every
day in school
74% of trans students, 55% of sexual minority students, and 26% of nonLGBT students reported having been verbally harassed about their gender
expression
More than one in five (21%) LGBTQ students reported being physically
harassed or assaulted due to their sexual orientation
Levels of sexual harassment are high across the board for LGBTQ students.
The following groups reported having experienced sexual harassment in
school in the last year:
49% of trans students
45% of students with LGBTQ parents
40% of gay male students
33% of lesbian students
Almost two thirds (64%) of LGBTQ students and 61% of students with
LGBTQ parents reported that they feel unsafe at school
Source: Taylor, C. & Peter, T. (2011)

Social Context of Schooling

February 22, 2016

Implications for Classroom Practices:

LGBTQ+ students are at increased risk for many forms of harassment and bullying. Creating a
welcoming and supportive school and classroom environment is extremely important for reducing the
negative impact on LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ parents. Studies have shown that
creating an environment that is supportive of LGBTQ+ individuals improves the educational outcomes
for all students, not just those that identify as LGBTQ (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016).
Creating a safe and welcoming school and class environment is a challenge, and it cannot be done
without commitment. According to a recent national Canadian study, generic safe school policies that do
not include specific measures on homophobia are not eective in improving school climate for LGBTQ
students (Taylor, C. & Peter T. 2011). This means that in order to help LGBTQ+ students, teachers need
to be purposefully including these issues in anti-bullying and other safe school policies. Although there
may be backlash from parents or other school sta, these are protected human rights. Increasing
education and resources for students, sta, and parents, and actively promoting LGBTQ+ acceptance in
your school is a good first step to actively changing classroom practices to promote and support LGBTQ+
students.

Resources for Teachers

The Alberta Teachers Association has excellent

resources on their website from GSAs to
professional development. (teachers.ab.ca)
MyGSA.ca is a Canadian organization with lots
of resources including lesson plans, student
stories, and lists of great literature. You can
register your GSA on this site and connect with
others across Canada!
GSANetwork.com is a site dedicated to
providing youth with resources to fight
homophobia and transphobia in schools.

Egale.ca is a national charity promoting LGBT

human rights through research, education and
community engagement. They have conducted
studies and collaborated on many resources for
teachers.
Advocatesforyouth.org is a site that outlines
LGBTQ+ issues, and provides teacher resources
for creating an inclusive classroom. They have
put together a variety lesson plans and mini
units that discuss how to incorporate LGBTQ+
discussion into the classroom.

Sources:
Alberta Education. (2016). Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning Environments that Respect Diverse Sexual
Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender Expressions. Retrieved from: https://education.alberta.ca/media/
1626737/91383-attachment-1-guidelines-final.pdf
Heck, N. C., Flentje, A., & Cochran, B. N. (2011). Offsetting Risks: High School Gay-Straight Alliances and Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth. School Psychology Quarterly, Vol 26(2), 161-174.
Hermann-Wilmarth, J.M., & Ryan, C.L. (2015). Doing what you can: Considering ways to address LGBT topics in Language
Arts curricula. Language Arts, 92(6), 436-443.
Schmidt, S. (2015). A queer arrangement of school: using spatiality to understand inequity. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
47(2), 253-273.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2016). Best Practices: Creating an LGBT-inclusive Climate. Retrieved from: http://
www.tolerance.org/lgbt-best-practices
Taylor, C. & Peter T, with McMinn, T.L., Elliott, T., Beldom, S., Ferry, A., Gross, Z., Paquin, S., & Schachter, K. (2011). Every class
in every school: The first transnational climate survey on homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian
schools. Final report. Toronto, ON: Egale Canada Human Rights Trust.
Thein, A. H. (2013). Language Arts Teachers Resistance to Teaching LGBT Literature and Issues. Language Arts, 11(3),
169-180.