‘No Outsiders’: Challenging homophobia and heteronormativity in UK primary schools

Author(s):

Renée DePalmaElizabeth Atkinson

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 02B, Social Justice and Diversities

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-10

11:15-12:45

Room:

B1 113

Chair:

Ghazala Bhatti

Contribution

In this presentation we will describe findings from a multi-phase research project investigating homophobia and heteronormativity in UK primary schools (schools for children aged 4 to 11 years) The project explores the possibility for disrupting dominant discourses of sexuality and gender expression and including sexualities equality work in an overall proactive school-based equalities agenda. Our research aims to put into practice the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: ‘the discrimination and persecution of people because of their sexual orientation is as unjust as the crime of racism. Homophobia is a crime against humanity. We overcame apartheid. We will overcome homophobia’ (Tutu, 2007). There is a wealth of research documenting the detrimental effects of homophobia and transphobia in the UK (Cull, Platzer, & Balloch, 2006; Stonewall, 2007; Whittle, Turner, & Al-Alami, 2007) as well as in various international contexts (Dalley & Campbell, 2006; deCastell & Jenson, 2002; Dyson et al., 2003; Lanaspa & Galán, 2006; McCready, 2004; Moita-Lopes, 2006; National Mental Health Association, 2005) Yet, despite its importance in terms of pupil, teacher and community wellbeing, sexualities equality remains the one area of inclusion still largely unaddressed in schools, often because of teachers’ own fears and concerns. If homophobia is described in popular media or academic literature it is almost always in terms of older children and adults; it is rarely addressed (or even recognised) as a concern for younger, pre-adolescent children. There seems to be a particular reluctance among teachers to address sexualities equality in the Primary years, where an implicit conceptual link between sexual orientation and sexual activity has led teachers to avoid addressing same sex relationships within, for example, discussions of family, friendship, self or growing up, despite the fact that many children in their care will have at least some connection, through family or friends, to non-heterosexual relationships, and some are likely to identify in later life as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The theoretical starting-point for this research is the concept of heteronormativity, the ‘organizational structures in schools that support heterosexuality as normal and anything else as deviant’ (Donelson & Rogers, 2004, p. 128). Homophobia emerges from heteronormative cultural contexts, but reactive school-based interventions focusing on challenging ‘homophobic bullying’ fail to grasp the broader cultural context of heteronormativity. When homophobia is portrayed in the UK media and identified (if it is identified at all) in UK schools, the focus is on isolated verbal or physical attacks that bullies visit upon victims. Yet research in Sweden suggests that violence against perceived homosexuals is enacted as a means of gender construction and is simultaneously a developmental, communicative, and social act (Knutagard, 2005). Classroom-based research in the UK has provided evidence that heteronormativity is maintained in schools through both active and passive means (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Epstein, O'Flynn, & Telford, 2003; Mac an Ghaill, 1994). This implies that reducing homophobic violence is more likely to occur through systemic social change than through simply preventing or reducing particular acts of violence. Such a change requires an interrogation of the assumptions underpinning heteronormativity, not only in terms of what is said and done, but also in terms of what is left unspoken. It is just such a change that our current action research project is aiming to bring about.

Method

The research has taken place in four overlapping phases between 2004 and 2008, incorporating the following modes of data collection: • in-depth interviews with 72 practising and prospective primary teachers, between September 2005 and August 2006, including teachers who explicitly self-identified as lesbian, gay, or straight. • a University-wide online discussion forum funded by the Nuffield foundation, which ran from November 2004 to February 2005, focusing on addressing homophobia and promoting sexualities equality in primary schools • an online teachers’ discussion forum entitled ‘Challenging homophobia: Does every child matter?’ hosted by the General Teaching Council for England from January to April 2006 • Our current Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, No Outsiders, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, involves primary teachers working throughout the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own schools and classrooms (September 2006 to December 2008).

Expected Outcomes

Our discussion webs revealed the many ways in which heteronormativity is discursively maintained, including assumptions that homosexuality is defined exclusively by sexual acts, that homosexuals are sexually dangerous, that children are asexual and innocent, that the normative is natural rather than socially constructed, and that sexuality is a private bodily issue that has no place in public, disembodied spaces such as schools (Atkinson & DePalma, in press-a; DePalma & Atkinson, 2006a, 2006b, 2007b). Similarly, many of our teachers’ narratives in interviews discursively sustained fears, motivations, and silences that have a significant impact on children, teachers and schools, comprising a web of perceptions and histories that serve to support heteronormativity, but which also hold the potential to disrupt it. Data emerging from all phases of our research suggest that non-normative gender identities attract what Patai (1992) describes as ‘surplus visibility’, while uncritical adherence to notions of civility (Mayo, 2002) prevents the exploration of these identities within educational contexts. Furthermore, the enforcement of the heteronormal tends to ensure that everyone, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity, is restricted to the small range of gendered and sexual behaviours that serve to affirm normative (hetero)sexuality. In this sense, disrupting this heterosexual matrix (Butler, 1990) is a broader social justice project that broadens possibilities for all children. The No Outsiders team is engaged in just such a social justice project, underpinned by the themes and findings emerging from the earlier phases of our research. Based at the University of Sunderland and working in collaboration with the University of Exeter and the Institute of Education (University of London) No Outsiders (http://www.nooutsiders.sunderland.ac.uk) is supporting teachers in 15 schools throughout the UK in addressing sexualities equality in their own schools and classrooms . The teacher-researchers are working in collaboration with a team of 7 university-based researchers and a diversity trainer who works with all the project schools. Strategies being explored by the teacher-researchers range from the use of LGBT-affirmative picture books and teaching resources and the revision of school policies on inclusion to more momentary, unpredictable interventions and responses arising from day-to-day events. The project takes its title from a statement made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the height of the debate over the acceptance of homosexuality in the Anglican church: Everyone is an insider, there are no outsiders – whatever their beliefs, whatever their colour, gender or sexuality. Data emerging so far have revealed the extent to which gender performance and sexuality are conflated within and beyond schools to reinforce heteronormativity (DePalma & Atkinson, 2007a) but have also shown how ‘speaking the unspeakable’ in the forbidden places of the primary school (Allan, Atkinson, Brace, DePalma, & Hemingway, in press) can serve to disrupt and deconstruct this conflation. We have discovered that small, counter-hegemonic acts and discourses – whether initiated by pupils, teachers or parents – can bring about subtle changes in the culture of the school (Atkinson, 2007; DePalma & Jennett, 2007), and that such acts render new connotations and understandings possible which serve to loosen the hold of the heterosexual matrix on the broader culture of education (Atkinson & DePalma, 2008, in press-b). While this research has taken place specifically within a UK context, we have received widespread international media attention, including but not limited to other European contexts (ie: Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria) which has led to increasing dialogue with colleagues outside the UK. This presentation will offer an opportunity to extend this dialogue further, and to consider the implications of our work for anti-homophobia initiatives in other European educational contexts.

References

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Author Information

Renée DePalma

University of Sunderland

School of Education and Lifelong Learning

Sunderland

Elizabeth Atkinson