Advancing an LGBTI-inclusive curriculum in Scotland through critical literacy

Abstract

Following the announcement, in November 2018, that Scotland would be the first educational system to introduce an LGBTI-inclusive curriculum in all of its state schools, this position paper advocates critical literacy as a theoretically congruent framework within which LGBTI issues can be explored. We suggest educators could do this by problematising social structures and language practices including our own professional actions beyond what we teach, and by using children’s literature to actively teach LGBTI issues and to open up spaces for discussion of these issues across curricular areas. What we propose is challenging in a Scottish educational context since Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) presents critical literacy as ‘finding and using information’, and it is not grounded in any wider theoretical basis, effectively removing the active, challenging and transformative aspects of critical literacy pedagogies. As Vasquez et al. argue, one of the key ways for teachers to engage with critical literacy is through the literature on its implementation in different contexts; in this position paper we hope to provide both a theoretical framework and practice accounts of LGBTI education from the wider literature to inform the development of an LGBTI-inclusive curriculum in Scotland and elsewhere.