Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221123383
C. Horton, A. Carlile
Background/Context: Throughout the past decade increasing numbers of trans children are being supported in childhood, with schools in countries across the world tasked with educating a generation of (known) trans pupils. Schools can adopt diverse approaches to inclusion or exclusion of trans pupils, with consequences for trans children’s well-being and safety at school. The literature includes extensive critique of the limitations of common approaches to trans inclusion, highlighting negative impacts on trans pupils. Purpose: This article aims to reframe and bring nuance to conversations on trans inclusion in education, drawing on primary research in the UK to make explicit different approaches to trans inclusion, their ideological underpinnings, and their implications for how trans children are welcomed in our schools. Setting: The research took place in the UK, with interviews conducted at a time of escalation of anti-trans discourse in UK courts and media. Population: This article draws on data from two qualitative research projects focusing on the experiences of trans and nonbinary children and their parents in the UK: one focusing on trans children aged 3–12 years, and the other on trans young people aged 12–18 years. Research Design: Semi-structured interviews explored trans children’s experiences in education in the UK, with a focus on trans-inclusive approaches to school culture, restrooms, and team sports. Data were analyzed against the trans inclusion staged model (TISM), a framework for distinguishing between different approaches to trans inclusion. Findings: Within the TISM we differentiate between trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, and trans-emancipatory approaches to educational inclusion. Interviews highlighted the harms and injustices in nonemancipatory approaches, revealing the role of cis supremacy in forcing trans pupils into positions of vulnerability. Conclusion/Recommendations: The TISM emphasizes the structural and systemic nature of trans oppression, illuminating the power imbalances embedded in nonemancipatory approaches, and acknowledging the need for fundamental reform. We recommend analysis and recognition of school practices that are trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, or trans-emancipatory. We call for increased recognition of cis supremacy within education and commitment to emancipatory approaches to trans inclusion, enabling progress toward equity and gender justice in our schools.
{"title":"“We Just Think of Her as One of the Girls”: Applying a Trans Inclusion Staged Model to the Experiences of Trans Children and Youth in UK Primary and Secondary Schools","authors":"C. Horton, A. Carlile","doi":"10.1177/01614681221123383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221123383","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: Throughout the past decade increasing numbers of trans children are being supported in childhood, with schools in countries across the world tasked with educating a generation of (known) trans pupils. Schools can adopt diverse approaches to inclusion or exclusion of trans pupils, with consequences for trans children’s well-being and safety at school. The literature includes extensive critique of the limitations of common approaches to trans inclusion, highlighting negative impacts on trans pupils. Purpose: This article aims to reframe and bring nuance to conversations on trans inclusion in education, drawing on primary research in the UK to make explicit different approaches to trans inclusion, their ideological underpinnings, and their implications for how trans children are welcomed in our schools. Setting: The research took place in the UK, with interviews conducted at a time of escalation of anti-trans discourse in UK courts and media. Population: This article draws on data from two qualitative research projects focusing on the experiences of trans and nonbinary children and their parents in the UK: one focusing on trans children aged 3–12 years, and the other on trans young people aged 12–18 years. Research Design: Semi-structured interviews explored trans children’s experiences in education in the UK, with a focus on trans-inclusive approaches to school culture, restrooms, and team sports. Data were analyzed against the trans inclusion staged model (TISM), a framework for distinguishing between different approaches to trans inclusion. Findings: Within the TISM we differentiate between trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, and trans-emancipatory approaches to educational inclusion. Interviews highlighted the harms and injustices in nonemancipatory approaches, revealing the role of cis supremacy in forcing trans pupils into positions of vulnerability. Conclusion/Recommendations: The TISM emphasizes the structural and systemic nature of trans oppression, illuminating the power imbalances embedded in nonemancipatory approaches, and acknowledging the need for fundamental reform. We recommend analysis and recognition of school practices that are trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, or trans-emancipatory. We call for increased recognition of cis supremacy within education and commitment to emancipatory approaches to trans inclusion, enabling progress toward equity and gender justice in our schools.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78103358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221123384
K. Omercajic
Background/Context: The experiences of trans students in all-gender bathrooms are largely underexplored, as is the trans-activism by students to procure these spaces. Additionally, the role of teachers in supporting the creation of these spaces is largely absent from research regarding bathroom spaces. Purpose: This article elucidates the impact of student-inspired trans-activism that was mobilized through a gender studies educator in an urban school and her class project to foster trans inclusivity that resulted in the creation of two all-gender bathrooms. Participants: Four participants were involved in this study: a gender studies teacher, and her three students who either contributed to the creation of the all-gender bathrooms or actively used them following their implementation. Research Design: This qualitative paradigmatic case study took place at one high school (Capital High) and employs thematic and trans-informed theoretical analysis to semi-structured interviews to elucidate the potentialities and limitations of student-led trans-activism and the barriers to bathroom access. Findings: Emergent from this research is the significance of supportive educators and trans-inclusive education that collectively contribute to the overall trans-inclusive climate. However, pervasive white cistems exposed white male gender entitlement and the forces of cisgenderism at play in the school system, which amounted to the colonization of the all-gender bathrooms at Capital High by the “Basement Boys.” Conclusion/Recommendations: The findings endorse the need to move beyond bathroom policy reform, and rely on a singular gender facilitative teacher to address the problem of cisgenderism. More gender-expansive commitments beyond one teacher’s classroom are required, such as system-level directives that support integrating trans-affirmative education across the curriculum and resources to foster ongoing professional development in schools.
{"title":"“Basement Boys” in the All-Gender Bathroom: Investigating Student-Inspired Trans-Activism and White Cisgenderist Barriers to Supporting Trans Students in School","authors":"K. Omercajic","doi":"10.1177/01614681221123384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221123384","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: The experiences of trans students in all-gender bathrooms are largely underexplored, as is the trans-activism by students to procure these spaces. Additionally, the role of teachers in supporting the creation of these spaces is largely absent from research regarding bathroom spaces. Purpose: This article elucidates the impact of student-inspired trans-activism that was mobilized through a gender studies educator in an urban school and her class project to foster trans inclusivity that resulted in the creation of two all-gender bathrooms. Participants: Four participants were involved in this study: a gender studies teacher, and her three students who either contributed to the creation of the all-gender bathrooms or actively used them following their implementation. Research Design: This qualitative paradigmatic case study took place at one high school (Capital High) and employs thematic and trans-informed theoretical analysis to semi-structured interviews to elucidate the potentialities and limitations of student-led trans-activism and the barriers to bathroom access. Findings: Emergent from this research is the significance of supportive educators and trans-inclusive education that collectively contribute to the overall trans-inclusive climate. However, pervasive white cistems exposed white male gender entitlement and the forces of cisgenderism at play in the school system, which amounted to the colonization of the all-gender bathrooms at Capital High by the “Basement Boys.” Conclusion/Recommendations: The findings endorse the need to move beyond bathroom policy reform, and rely on a singular gender facilitative teacher to address the problem of cisgenderism. More gender-expansive commitments beyond one teacher’s classroom are required, such as system-level directives that support integrating trans-affirmative education across the curriculum and resources to foster ongoing professional development in schools.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72567839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221121530
Deevia Bhana
Background: Teachers’ support for addressing cisgenderism and cisnormative cultures in schools is necessary to support students’ freedom to express gender in expansive ways and to embrace trans identities. However, few questions are asked about how primary school teachers grapple with trans identities in South Africa. Purpose: The article fills this gap by focusing on how school teachers negotiate their understandings of gender identity and gender expression by showing their capacities and potential in creating a trans-affirmative climate in primary school. Participants: Participants were 30 self-identified heterosexual primary school teachers of diverse race and class backgrounds who were located in one primary school in South Africa. Research Design: This qualitative study employed in-depth face-to-face and telephone-based semi-structured individual interviews. The article draws from new feminist materialist approaches to “assemblages” and decolonial thinking to consider how participants negotiated gender expectations. Findings: Trans identity is conflated with being gay and misrecognized through a reliance on historically produced religious and cultural norms that are part of the colonial and apartheid legacies in South Africa. While the trans assemblage shows potential to challenge and question the sex-gender conflation, historical legacies, suffused with cis-heteronormative logics, lead to a fundamental misrecognition and erasure of trans as a sign of being gay. Conclusions/Recommendations: The utility of a decolonial trans assemblage is evident in examining how epistemic erasure occurs through historical mechanisms, while denaturalizing the reliance on binary gendered systems and Western knowledge. If primary schools are to support gender-expansive ways of being, addressing how historical processes, cisgenderism, and cisnormative cultures permeate teachers’ understanding of gender remains vital work.
{"title":"Primary School Teachers Misrecognizing Trans Identities? Religious, Cultural, and Decolonial Assemblages","authors":"Deevia Bhana","doi":"10.1177/01614681221121530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221121530","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Teachers’ support for addressing cisgenderism and cisnormative cultures in schools is necessary to support students’ freedom to express gender in expansive ways and to embrace trans identities. However, few questions are asked about how primary school teachers grapple with trans identities in South Africa. Purpose: The article fills this gap by focusing on how school teachers negotiate their understandings of gender identity and gender expression by showing their capacities and potential in creating a trans-affirmative climate in primary school. Participants: Participants were 30 self-identified heterosexual primary school teachers of diverse race and class backgrounds who were located in one primary school in South Africa. Research Design: This qualitative study employed in-depth face-to-face and telephone-based semi-structured individual interviews. The article draws from new feminist materialist approaches to “assemblages” and decolonial thinking to consider how participants negotiated gender expectations. Findings: Trans identity is conflated with being gay and misrecognized through a reliance on historically produced religious and cultural norms that are part of the colonial and apartheid legacies in South Africa. While the trans assemblage shows potential to challenge and question the sex-gender conflation, historical legacies, suffused with cis-heteronormative logics, lead to a fundamental misrecognition and erasure of trans as a sign of being gay. Conclusions/Recommendations: The utility of a decolonial trans assemblage is evident in examining how epistemic erasure occurs through historical mechanisms, while denaturalizing the reliance on binary gendered systems and Western knowledge. If primary schools are to support gender-expansive ways of being, addressing how historical processes, cisgenderism, and cisnormative cultures permeate teachers’ understanding of gender remains vital work.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84026237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221121522
Wayne Martino, K. Omercajic, J. Kassen
Background/Context: In Ontario, and Canada more broadly, anti-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression is enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which have required schools to address trans inclusion. However, the ways in which educators understand or enact these policies, and whether they are even aware of them, remain largely underexplored. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: Our purpose was to learn more about educators’ awareness and understanding of trans-inclusive policies in schools and the extent to which such policies were informing practice. Participants: While this research is based on survey data comprising 1,194 respondents, this article examines comments provided about trans-affirmative policy from 463 educators. Research Design: This study involves large-scale survey research conducted on 1,194 educators in Ontario K–12 schools; the survey was disseminated via social media and educational affiliates. We draw primarily on the qualitative data component of the survey, where educators provided detailed comments about and insights into trans-inclusive policies. We employed a reflexive approach to coding and thematic analysis to identify key themes. Findings/Results: Although our quantitative data depicted a favorable assessment of support for trans-affirmative policies—94% of respondents found their school’s policy to be very or somewhat relevant—our findings highlight a discrepancy between policy and practice, and a lack of commitment to addressing cisgenderist, cisnormative, and cissexist systems. The themes that emerged from our coding and analysis of the qualitative data were: (1) educators’ understanding of policy as accommodation; (2) individualized approaches to trans inclusion; (3) lack of administrative support and intervention; (4) the gap between policy and practice; (5) transphobic and cissexist resistance to supporting gender diversity; (6) the need for trans-affirming and gender-expansive curriculum, and (7) the problem of generalized approaches to equity and acceptance of diversity. In addition, we discuss several educator comments that raise important questions about race and the need for intersectional approaches to addressing equity and trans inclusion in schools. Conclusions/Recommendations: We advocate for a paradigm shift with respect to the necessity of employing a trans epistemological framework that addresses the need for gender-expansive education which focuses on the harmful effects of cisgenderism, cisnormativity, and cissexism in the education system. Central to addressing gender justice and trans marginalization in schools for all students, we conclude, is the need for policy makers to ensure accountability and budgetary allocation for the provision of resources and professional development for educators in schools.
{"title":"“We Have No ‘Visibly’ Trans Students in Our School”: Educators’ Perspectives on Transgender-Affirmative Policies in Schools","authors":"Wayne Martino, K. Omercajic, J. Kassen","doi":"10.1177/01614681221121522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221121522","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: In Ontario, and Canada more broadly, anti-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression is enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which have required schools to address trans inclusion. However, the ways in which educators understand or enact these policies, and whether they are even aware of them, remain largely underexplored. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: Our purpose was to learn more about educators’ awareness and understanding of trans-inclusive policies in schools and the extent to which such policies were informing practice. Participants: While this research is based on survey data comprising 1,194 respondents, this article examines comments provided about trans-affirmative policy from 463 educators. Research Design: This study involves large-scale survey research conducted on 1,194 educators in Ontario K–12 schools; the survey was disseminated via social media and educational affiliates. We draw primarily on the qualitative data component of the survey, where educators provided detailed comments about and insights into trans-inclusive policies. We employed a reflexive approach to coding and thematic analysis to identify key themes. Findings/Results: Although our quantitative data depicted a favorable assessment of support for trans-affirmative policies—94% of respondents found their school’s policy to be very or somewhat relevant—our findings highlight a discrepancy between policy and practice, and a lack of commitment to addressing cisgenderist, cisnormative, and cissexist systems. The themes that emerged from our coding and analysis of the qualitative data were: (1) educators’ understanding of policy as accommodation; (2) individualized approaches to trans inclusion; (3) lack of administrative support and intervention; (4) the gap between policy and practice; (5) transphobic and cissexist resistance to supporting gender diversity; (6) the need for trans-affirming and gender-expansive curriculum, and (7) the problem of generalized approaches to equity and acceptance of diversity. In addition, we discuss several educator comments that raise important questions about race and the need for intersectional approaches to addressing equity and trans inclusion in schools. Conclusions/Recommendations: We advocate for a paradigm shift with respect to the necessity of employing a trans epistemological framework that addresses the need for gender-expansive education which focuses on the harmful effects of cisgenderism, cisnormativity, and cissexism in the education system. Central to addressing gender justice and trans marginalization in schools for all students, we conclude, is the need for policy makers to ensure accountability and budgetary allocation for the provision of resources and professional development for educators in schools.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74167002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221121513
Wayne Martino
Context/Background: This article provides an introduction to the special issue. It includes an overview of a collection of articles from scholars across the globe who are committed to deepening an understanding of the experiences of trans students and gender-expansive education in schools. The special issue grew out of concerns about the need to investigate a trans studies–informed approach to addressing trans marginalization that attends to questions of both gender and racial justice in K-12 schools—an approach that is much needed in the field. The special issue also emerges, and needs to be contextualized, in response to the current conditions of resurgent far-right extremism, with its accompanying anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide both an introduction to the special issue and a rationale for its conception. It serves as an orientation to reading of the special issue as a whole, functioning as a synthesizing introduction: a point of reference and lens through which to situate the contributing articles in a dialogic relation to mark a distinctive assemblage in the field both within and beyond the North American context.
{"title":"Supporting Transgender Students and Gender-Expansive Education in Schools: Investigating Policy, Pedagogy, and Curricular Implications","authors":"Wayne Martino","doi":"10.1177/01614681221121513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221121513","url":null,"abstract":"Context/Background: This article provides an introduction to the special issue. It includes an overview of a collection of articles from scholars across the globe who are committed to deepening an understanding of the experiences of trans students and gender-expansive education in schools. The special issue grew out of concerns about the need to investigate a trans studies–informed approach to addressing trans marginalization that attends to questions of both gender and racial justice in K-12 schools—an approach that is much needed in the field. The special issue also emerges, and needs to be contextualized, in response to the current conditions of resurgent far-right extremism, with its accompanying anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide both an introduction to the special issue and a rationale for its conception. It serves as an orientation to reading of the special issue as a whole, functioning as a synthesizing introduction: a point of reference and lens through which to situate the contributing articles in a dialogic relation to mark a distinctive assemblage in the field both within and beyond the North American context.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90595412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221121531
Adrian D. Zongrone, Nhan L. Truong, C. M. Clark
Background: Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) students commonly experience identity-based harassment, which is associated with poorer mental health, and TNB students of color may experience harassment targeting gender, race/ethnicity, and other identities. Applying an intersectional lens to minority stress theory suggests that different forms of identity-based harassment that target different identities are interconnected. However, few studies address intersecting forms of bias experienced by TNB students of color. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay of racism and transphobia among TNB students by comparing experiences of racist and transphobic harassment across seven racial/ethnic groups and examining the effects of these forms of identity-based harassment on the mental health of TNB students of color. Participants: Participants were drawn from a large national sample of LGBTQ students who were enrolled in secondary school during the 2018–2019 school year. The study sample consists of all those who were TNB (N = 6,795). The majority of the sample identified as transgender (68.7%), and just under a third identified as nonbinary, but not as transgender (31.3%). The majority were White (71.3%), and approximately a third identified as gay or lesbian (33.7%). Research Design: This quantitative study employed a multivariate analysis of covariance to examine differences in frequency of racist and transphobic harassment across racial/ethnic groups. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine the main effects of harassment, as well as interaction effects between these forms of harassment, on depression and self-esteem among TNB students of color. Results: Frequencies of race-based harassment were generally similar for all students of color groups and lowest for White TNB students. Frequencies of gender-based harassment were relatively higher for Native American TNB students and lower for Black and Asian American/Pacific Islander TNB students. Among TNB students of color, each form of harassment was associated with greater depression and lower self-esteem. We did not observe a significant interaction between these forms of harassment. Conclusions: Despite some differences between groups, many TNB students of color experience both racist and transphobic harassment. Experiencing both of these forms of harassment is associated with poorer mental health outcomes than experiencing one. School professionals must consider these multiple forms of bias in supporting their students at school.
{"title":"Transgender and Nonbinary Youths’ Experiences With Gender-Based and Race-Based School Harassment","authors":"Adrian D. Zongrone, Nhan L. Truong, C. M. Clark","doi":"10.1177/01614681221121531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221121531","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) students commonly experience identity-based harassment, which is associated with poorer mental health, and TNB students of color may experience harassment targeting gender, race/ethnicity, and other identities. Applying an intersectional lens to minority stress theory suggests that different forms of identity-based harassment that target different identities are interconnected. However, few studies address intersecting forms of bias experienced by TNB students of color. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay of racism and transphobia among TNB students by comparing experiences of racist and transphobic harassment across seven racial/ethnic groups and examining the effects of these forms of identity-based harassment on the mental health of TNB students of color. Participants: Participants were drawn from a large national sample of LGBTQ students who were enrolled in secondary school during the 2018–2019 school year. The study sample consists of all those who were TNB (N = 6,795). The majority of the sample identified as transgender (68.7%), and just under a third identified as nonbinary, but not as transgender (31.3%). The majority were White (71.3%), and approximately a third identified as gay or lesbian (33.7%). Research Design: This quantitative study employed a multivariate analysis of covariance to examine differences in frequency of racist and transphobic harassment across racial/ethnic groups. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine the main effects of harassment, as well as interaction effects between these forms of harassment, on depression and self-esteem among TNB students of color. Results: Frequencies of race-based harassment were generally similar for all students of color groups and lowest for White TNB students. Frequencies of gender-based harassment were relatively higher for Native American TNB students and lower for Black and Asian American/Pacific Islander TNB students. Among TNB students of color, each form of harassment was associated with greater depression and lower self-esteem. We did not observe a significant interaction between these forms of harassment. Conclusions: Despite some differences between groups, many TNB students of color experience both racist and transphobic harassment. Experiencing both of these forms of harassment is associated with poorer mental health outcomes than experiencing one. School professionals must consider these multiple forms of bias in supporting their students at school.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86911792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221121514
Wayne Martino
Background/Context: Trans studies provides onto-epistemological, theoretical, ethical, and political frameworks that have a particular application for studies in education, and specifically for educators in schools, that remains largely unexplored or unelaborated. Within a context of resurgent right-wing extremism that fuels anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric, trans studies provides analytic tools for deepening an understanding of gender expansive education and addressing gender and racial justice in schools. Purpose/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to illuminate the utility of trans-informed frameworks and the hermeneutic resources they provide in their potential to enhance and deepen an understanding of the pedagogical interventions in the classroom that are needed to educate about trans marginalization and racial justice. The focus is on the application of these frameworks, both with respect to fostering professional learning for educators in schools, and for my own pedagogy and course development. Research Design: In adopting a critical incident/critical reflexive practitioner approach, the author provides a sustained reflection on his own pedagogical practices and approach to curriculum development within the context of teaching a graduate course on gender and sexual diversity in schools. While such critical reflections emerged in response to one core critical incident, they are extended through an application of a trans studies approach to thinking through the scaffolded learning process for educators in the application of trans studies, and what this means for the sort of teacher threshold knowledges that are needed in schools for addressing gender and racial justice. Findings: Trans studies provides hermeneutic resources and analytic concepts that serve as tools for supporting teachers in reflecting on cissexist assumptions and how these materialize through their practice in the classroom. A concretization of what it means for teachers to enact a trans-studies-informed pedagogy requires a scaffolded approach and one that entails a weaving through of a critical and integrated focus on race, settler colonialism, and cissexism. Conclusions: The article highlights that there are certain limits to conceiving of a pedagogical commitment to interrogating gender binaries as a basis for addressing gender-expansive education in schools. The author concludes that such frameworks, in an absence of embracing a trans-informed approach to thinking about gender diversity and racial justice, run the risk of relying on a bifurcating categorization of trans students’ identities that ignore fundamental questions related to the impact of cissexism and its implication in colonial domination and racialization.
{"title":"A Transgender Studies Approach for Educators in Schools: Reflections on “Cissexist Pitfalls,” Bifurcated Frameworks, and Racial Justice","authors":"Wayne Martino","doi":"10.1177/01614681221121514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221121514","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: Trans studies provides onto-epistemological, theoretical, ethical, and political frameworks that have a particular application for studies in education, and specifically for educators in schools, that remains largely unexplored or unelaborated. Within a context of resurgent right-wing extremism that fuels anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric, trans studies provides analytic tools for deepening an understanding of gender expansive education and addressing gender and racial justice in schools. Purpose/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to illuminate the utility of trans-informed frameworks and the hermeneutic resources they provide in their potential to enhance and deepen an understanding of the pedagogical interventions in the classroom that are needed to educate about trans marginalization and racial justice. The focus is on the application of these frameworks, both with respect to fostering professional learning for educators in schools, and for my own pedagogy and course development. Research Design: In adopting a critical incident/critical reflexive practitioner approach, the author provides a sustained reflection on his own pedagogical practices and approach to curriculum development within the context of teaching a graduate course on gender and sexual diversity in schools. While such critical reflections emerged in response to one core critical incident, they are extended through an application of a trans studies approach to thinking through the scaffolded learning process for educators in the application of trans studies, and what this means for the sort of teacher threshold knowledges that are needed in schools for addressing gender and racial justice. Findings: Trans studies provides hermeneutic resources and analytic concepts that serve as tools for supporting teachers in reflecting on cissexist assumptions and how these materialize through their practice in the classroom. A concretization of what it means for teachers to enact a trans-studies-informed pedagogy requires a scaffolded approach and one that entails a weaving through of a critical and integrated focus on race, settler colonialism, and cissexism. Conclusions: The article highlights that there are certain limits to conceiving of a pedagogical commitment to interrogating gender binaries as a basis for addressing gender-expansive education in schools. The author concludes that such frameworks, in an absence of embracing a trans-informed approach to thinking about gender diversity and racial justice, run the risk of relying on a bifurcating categorization of trans students’ identities that ignore fundamental questions related to the impact of cissexism and its implication in colonial domination and racialization.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81308355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221123129
Madelaine Adelman, Sean Nonnenmacher, Bailey Borman, J. Kosciw
Background: Within the context of high school student clubs, the acronym “GSA” originally stood for “Gay-Straight Alliance.” It described gay and straight youth working as allies to learn about themselves and each other’s lives and to navigate and address interpersonal and institutional anti-LGBTQ school policies and practices. Today, the acronym is commonly parsed by Gen Z members as “Gender-Sexuality Alliance” to better represent the presence and needs of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students, and their cisgender allies. Purpose of Study: We inquire how students learn about themselves and others—partially, unevenly, and, at times, uneasily—as they incorporate socially resistant gender and race identity work within their GSA school clubs. Participants: Participants were cisgender (n = 10) and transgender and nonbinary (n = 10), racially diverse high school students in GSAs between 14 and 18 years of age. Research Design: Our analysis is grounded in critical pragmatism, a methodological integration of critical theory and pragmatism, which stems from reflexive immersion in the research context and use of empirical inquiry as a tool to acknowledge and guide transformation of entrenched anti-trans oppression in schools, noting that racism, among other forms of structural inequality, is built into schools. We analyzed the interview component of a larger mixed-methods research study conducted by the GLSEN Research Institute, which was intended to generate insight about student and advisor experiences of GSAs. Findings: Our study reveals that while GSAs can be a space for marginalized LGBTQ students to create a collective empowering identity, they can also be a space where some differences may be flattened or left out. We explore how students make visible racial and gender identity groups during GSA activities that are often erased in secondary schools. This implicitly and explicitly entails deploying identity as a challenge to a school’s heteronormative, cisnormative, and white-dominant official curriculum, although the depth or complexity of a GSA’s visibility-based education and critique may be inadequate, given available resources. Our findings demonstrate how GSA students leverage their identity as a goal when mobilizing themselves and their peers to alter a school’s norms and practices. Conclusions: Gen Z GSA students have begun to reimagine their clubs as if they were built from the ground up, with the needs of transgender students and students of color placed at their center. GSAs remain a critical but underdeveloped resource for learning how to recognize and challenge intersectional forms of interpersonal and institutional marginalization.
{"title":"Gen Z GSAs: Trans-Affirming and Racially Inclusive Gender-Sexuality Alliances in Secondary Schools","authors":"Madelaine Adelman, Sean Nonnenmacher, Bailey Borman, J. Kosciw","doi":"10.1177/01614681221123129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221123129","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Within the context of high school student clubs, the acronym “GSA” originally stood for “Gay-Straight Alliance.” It described gay and straight youth working as allies to learn about themselves and each other’s lives and to navigate and address interpersonal and institutional anti-LGBTQ school policies and practices. Today, the acronym is commonly parsed by Gen Z members as “Gender-Sexuality Alliance” to better represent the presence and needs of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students, and their cisgender allies. Purpose of Study: We inquire how students learn about themselves and others—partially, unevenly, and, at times, uneasily—as they incorporate socially resistant gender and race identity work within their GSA school clubs. Participants: Participants were cisgender (n = 10) and transgender and nonbinary (n = 10), racially diverse high school students in GSAs between 14 and 18 years of age. Research Design: Our analysis is grounded in critical pragmatism, a methodological integration of critical theory and pragmatism, which stems from reflexive immersion in the research context and use of empirical inquiry as a tool to acknowledge and guide transformation of entrenched anti-trans oppression in schools, noting that racism, among other forms of structural inequality, is built into schools. We analyzed the interview component of a larger mixed-methods research study conducted by the GLSEN Research Institute, which was intended to generate insight about student and advisor experiences of GSAs. Findings: Our study reveals that while GSAs can be a space for marginalized LGBTQ students to create a collective empowering identity, they can also be a space where some differences may be flattened or left out. We explore how students make visible racial and gender identity groups during GSA activities that are often erased in secondary schools. This implicitly and explicitly entails deploying identity as a challenge to a school’s heteronormative, cisnormative, and white-dominant official curriculum, although the depth or complexity of a GSA’s visibility-based education and critique may be inadequate, given available resources. Our findings demonstrate how GSA students leverage their identity as a goal when mobilizing themselves and their peers to alter a school’s norms and practices. Conclusions: Gen Z GSA students have begun to reimagine their clubs as if they were built from the ground up, with the needs of transgender students and students of color placed at their center. GSAs remain a critical but underdeveloped resource for learning how to recognize and challenge intersectional forms of interpersonal and institutional marginalization.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90421467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221111458
Brian Cabral, S. Annamma, Annie Le, Brianna Harvey, Jennifer M. Wilmot, Jamelia Morgan
Context: Prison education has often been ignored in discussions of public education. When it has been included, Girls of Color are often eclipsed by larger populations of Boys of Color. Yet the routes disabled Girls of Color take to prisons are different from those of their male peers; Girls of Color become incarcerated for low-level offenses and often end up back in prison due to probation violations, meaning they have been punished more severely for original crimes. Although prison education has offered educational opportunities, such as the chance to get a diploma or GED, most of it has been found to be remedial and irrelevant to the lives of incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. Focus of Study: In this article, we unraveled the complexities and nuances of solidarity within prison education classrooms with disabled Girls of Color. Using a disability critical race theory (DisCrit) Solidarity lens while analyzing a sociocritical literacy course, the empirical research question was: What are the affordances and constraints of DisCrit Solidarity with disabled Girls of Color in a youth prison? Research Design: Our qualitative study took place in a maximum-security youth prison in the Midwestern part of the United States. This study was part of a larger one-year project that included 16 incarcerated disabled girls, mostly Girls of Color, who enrolled in a credit-bearing sociocritical literacy course designed and taught by the principal investigator and teaching team. Our full corpus of data included interviews with the girls (23) and adults in the youth prison (6), classroom observations (25), education journey maps (10), focus groups (4), fieldnotes (20), and classroom artifacts (21). Data for this study focused on the interviews with the girls, observations, fieldnotes, and class materials. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our analysis illustrated the affordances and constraints of solidarity in prison classrooms with incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. The affordances included tangible moves that the girls identified as solidarity, the need for solidarity to make critical pedagogy and curriculum impactful, and the effect of those affordances that the girls described. In youth prisons where tools of learning, such as pencils, were considered weapons, we found two constraints that limited DisCrit Solidarity efforts: the conflation of support with solidarity and the violent context of youth prisons. We conclude with the implication that our solidarity efforts were incarcerated. To move beyond narrowly focused solidarity efforts, we suggest growing out abolitionist geography to consider the multiscalar processes that lead to sustained solidarities with incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Marilyn Ortega and William Proffitt for their roles in both the pedagogical team and data collection on this project. We also appreciate the editors of this special issue, David Connor and Beth Ferri, for their vision and incl
{"title":"Solidarity Incarcerated: Building Authentic Relationships With Girls of Color in Youth Prisons","authors":"Brian Cabral, S. Annamma, Annie Le, Brianna Harvey, Jennifer M. Wilmot, Jamelia Morgan","doi":"10.1177/01614681221111458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221111458","url":null,"abstract":"Context: Prison education has often been ignored in discussions of public education. When it has been included, Girls of Color are often eclipsed by larger populations of Boys of Color. Yet the routes disabled Girls of Color take to prisons are different from those of their male peers; Girls of Color become incarcerated for low-level offenses and often end up back in prison due to probation violations, meaning they have been punished more severely for original crimes. Although prison education has offered educational opportunities, such as the chance to get a diploma or GED, most of it has been found to be remedial and irrelevant to the lives of incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. Focus of Study: In this article, we unraveled the complexities and nuances of solidarity within prison education classrooms with disabled Girls of Color. Using a disability critical race theory (DisCrit) Solidarity lens while analyzing a sociocritical literacy course, the empirical research question was: What are the affordances and constraints of DisCrit Solidarity with disabled Girls of Color in a youth prison? Research Design: Our qualitative study took place in a maximum-security youth prison in the Midwestern part of the United States. This study was part of a larger one-year project that included 16 incarcerated disabled girls, mostly Girls of Color, who enrolled in a credit-bearing sociocritical literacy course designed and taught by the principal investigator and teaching team. Our full corpus of data included interviews with the girls (23) and adults in the youth prison (6), classroom observations (25), education journey maps (10), focus groups (4), fieldnotes (20), and classroom artifacts (21). Data for this study focused on the interviews with the girls, observations, fieldnotes, and class materials. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our analysis illustrated the affordances and constraints of solidarity in prison classrooms with incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. The affordances included tangible moves that the girls identified as solidarity, the need for solidarity to make critical pedagogy and curriculum impactful, and the effect of those affordances that the girls described. In youth prisons where tools of learning, such as pencils, were considered weapons, we found two constraints that limited DisCrit Solidarity efforts: the conflation of support with solidarity and the violent context of youth prisons. We conclude with the implication that our solidarity efforts were incarcerated. To move beyond narrowly focused solidarity efforts, we suggest growing out abolitionist geography to consider the multiscalar processes that lead to sustained solidarities with incarcerated disabled Girls of Color. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Marilyn Ortega and William Proffitt for their roles in both the pedagogical team and data collection on this project. We also appreciate the editors of this special issue, David Connor and Beth Ferri, for their vision and incl","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84103154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221111428
Danielle C. Mireles
Background/Context: Although research on the experiences of multiply-marginalized Black and Brown students with dis/abilities in higher education is limited, this growing body of work indicates that these students navigate racialized perceptions of ability, which impact their experiences on college and university campuses. This research highlights the need for intersectional frameworks that consider students’ multiple identities and the limitations of single-identity–focused frameworks. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Centering the counternarratives of 10 Black and Brown undergraduate students with dis/abilities across five college and university campuses, this article uses critical race theory (CRT), disability critical race theory (DisCrit), and racist nativism to develop a conceptual framework of racist ableism. Racist ableism bridges CRT, DisCrit, and racist nativism to describe how particular forms of ableism, informed by racist attitudes and beliefs, oppress and dehumanize Black and Brown people based on actual or perceived (or, inversely, lack of perceived) dis/ability, thereby reinforcing the relationship between whiteness and ability. Research Design: I examined the counternarratives of 10 Black and Brown undergraduate students who identified or have the lived experience of dis/ability. Counternarratives allowed me to center the stories of students. I identify three overarching findings: (1) Black and Brown dis/abled students navigated racialized perceptions of intelligence, productivity, and academic capability; (2) Black and Brown dis/abled students were pathologized as lazy and/or deviant, which minimized or erased their access needs; and (3) Black and Brown dis/abled students resisted racist ableist discourses. Conclusions/Recommendations: The counternarratives of students reveal how racialized perceptions of ability shaped their experiences interacting with staff and their ability to access institutional supports such as accommodations. They also reveal the critical raced-disabled epistemologies of Black and Brown students who identify or have been labeled as dis/abled. Their counternarratives highlight the need for: (1) intersectional frameworks that account for the ways in which racism and ableism are interconnected, and (2) race-conscious policies and practices that consider their multidimensional identities.
{"title":"Theorizing Racist Ableism in Higher Education","authors":"Danielle C. Mireles","doi":"10.1177/01614681221111428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221111428","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: Although research on the experiences of multiply-marginalized Black and Brown students with dis/abilities in higher education is limited, this growing body of work indicates that these students navigate racialized perceptions of ability, which impact their experiences on college and university campuses. This research highlights the need for intersectional frameworks that consider students’ multiple identities and the limitations of single-identity–focused frameworks. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Centering the counternarratives of 10 Black and Brown undergraduate students with dis/abilities across five college and university campuses, this article uses critical race theory (CRT), disability critical race theory (DisCrit), and racist nativism to develop a conceptual framework of racist ableism. Racist ableism bridges CRT, DisCrit, and racist nativism to describe how particular forms of ableism, informed by racist attitudes and beliefs, oppress and dehumanize Black and Brown people based on actual or perceived (or, inversely, lack of perceived) dis/ability, thereby reinforcing the relationship between whiteness and ability. Research Design: I examined the counternarratives of 10 Black and Brown undergraduate students who identified or have the lived experience of dis/ability. Counternarratives allowed me to center the stories of students. I identify three overarching findings: (1) Black and Brown dis/abled students navigated racialized perceptions of intelligence, productivity, and academic capability; (2) Black and Brown dis/abled students were pathologized as lazy and/or deviant, which minimized or erased their access needs; and (3) Black and Brown dis/abled students resisted racist ableist discourses. Conclusions/Recommendations: The counternarratives of students reveal how racialized perceptions of ability shaped their experiences interacting with staff and their ability to access institutional supports such as accommodations. They also reveal the critical raced-disabled epistemologies of Black and Brown students who identify or have been labeled as dis/abled. Their counternarratives highlight the need for: (1) intersectional frameworks that account for the ways in which racism and ableism are interconnected, and (2) race-conscious policies and practices that consider their multidimensional identities.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87126642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}