Background / Context 

LGBTQ+ inclusive education in Irish primary schools is developing at a moment of curricular change and rising socio-political tension. While the redeveloped SPHE curriculum foregrounds, for the first time, explicit learning related to LGBTQ+ inclusion, these policy developments are not without significant tensions. Teachers work within cultural and school environments shaped by newly emerging heteroactivist discourses that mobilise child protection, parental rights and social stability to oppose LGBTQ+ education (Nash & Browne, 2020). Such narratives intersect with longstanding discourses of childhood innocence, which frame LGBTQ+ content as inherently sensitive or inappropriate for primary-aged children (Neary & Rasmussen, 2020), and with reactionary uses of secularism and pluralism that recast resistance in ostensibly neutral, rights-based terms (Kitching, 2024). These dynamics shape teachers’ preparedness which is tentatively conceptualised as a multidimensional capacity that brings together teachers’ knowledge, pedagogical judgment, emotional readiness and navigation of institutional conditions so they can engage confidently and critically with LGBTQ+-inclusive teaching.  However, in this broader context, teacher preparedness emerges not as an individual trait but as a socially situated process shaped by competing political, cultural and social discourses. 

Aim / Objectives / Purpose 

This study aims to explore the personal, structural and discursive factors that influence Irish primary teachers’ preparedness for LGBTQ+-inclusive education. Drawing on Queer Theory and a critical interpretivist approach, the project explores how teachers interpret LGBTQ+ education, navigate tensions between policy and practice, and make professional decisions within contemporary socio-political conditions. Primary Research Question: How do Irish primary teachers experience and interpret LGBTQ+ education within the current curricular, social and political landscape? 

Data collection is underway and involves semi-structured interviews supported by vignettes that present realistic school-based dilemmas involving LGBTQ+ inclusion. These scenarios invite teachers to reflect on professional reasoning without requiring personal identity disclosures. Ethical safeguards recognise sensitivities around ethos, parental expectations and perceived community responses. Data is being analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, exploring how preparedness is shaped through the interplay of personal disposition, institutional culture and resistance dynamics. Emergent insights from the data collection phase are being shared, with conference participants invited to contribute to the ongoing refinement of the project.

This study offers a theoretically grounded, context-sensitive account of how LGBTQ+ education, gender resistances and teacher preparedness intersect in Irish primary schools. By centring structural and discursive influences rather than individual deficits, the project aims to inform professional learning that is ethically attentive, practically grounded and responsive to the realities teachers face in implementing LGBTQ+-inclusive SPHE.

Nash, C. J., & Browne, K. (2020). Heteroactivism: Resisting lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans rights and equalities. Bloomsbury. Neary, A., & Rasmussen, M. L. (2020). Marriage equality time: Entanglements of sexual progress and childhood innocence in Irish primary schools. Sexualities, 23(5–6), 898–916. Kitching, K. (2024). The reactionary use of concepts of secularism, pluralism and freedom of expression: Implications for education studies. Irish Educational Studies, 42(3), 317–330.