“This Is Fine”: The Principal’s Role in the Induction Experiences of a Gay, Novice, ELA Teacher

Abstract

While there have been numerous studies of teachers’ lived experiences, the LGBTQ+- teaching community continues to be underrepresented within this literature (Mayo, 2008). More specifically, empirical evidence regarding LGBTQ+ preservice teachers’ (PST) experiences and their induction is nearly all, but absent. This is of great importance to discussions and formations of educational practice and policies. Drawn from a larger, critical narratological study examining lesbian, gay, and/or queer first-year E/LA teachers, this study illuminates the experiences of a first-year, middle school E/LA teacher and her stories of her interactions with her building’s principal. Utilizing systems of first year teaching (Strom et al., 2018), tenets of queer theory (Butler, 1997), and subjectivities (Cammack & Phillips, 2002), this study drew on multiple semi-structured interviews, ethnographic field observations, preservice field experience journals and coursework, along with artifacts of student learning. Findings demonstrate the participant’s sense of space and place within her building, district, and the state, in combination with multiple interactions with her school’s administration, elicited and reified feelings of precarity, which were interwoven within her induction stories. Most importantly, these tensions affected the participant’s sense-making, and contributed to troubles with enacting more engaging, student-centered pedagogical practices, which contributed to difficulties in curating healthier classroom ecologies. Altogether, this furthered the participant’s feelings of confusion, isolation, and inefficacy. As these emotions are often associated with teacher attrition, implications center the key role principals and school policies play within teacher induction, but especially in disrupting inequities and affirming LGBTQ+ teachers’ importance within their schools.