Countering heteronormativity and cisnormativity in Australian
schools: Examining English teachers' reflections on gender and sexual
diversity in the classroom
Wendy M. Cumming-Potvin a, *
, Wayne Martino b
a
Murdoch University, WA, Australia
b
University of Western Ontario, Canada
h i g h l i g h t s
 Generating understandings to combat cisnormativity and heteronormativity.
 Examining teachers' reflections about LGBTQI issues, curriculum and literacy.
 Presenting a Bakhtian/Foucauldian model to reveal teacher discourses.
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 March 2018
Accepted 7 April 2018
Available online 21 April 2018
a b s t r a c t
Examining the voices of English teachers regarding the extent to which Australian high schools are
providing inclusive environments, this paper aims to generate deeper understandings about countering
cisnormativity and heteronormativity. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted in Western Australia,
the theoretical framework meshes the lenses of Bakhtin (1981) and Foucault (1995) to create an
emergent model, integrating concepts such as the panoptic surveillance, dialogic utterances and heteroglossic
language. Results reveal how teacher discourses concerning the provision of LGBTQI curriculum
and resources, link to networks of power, and are imbued with a multiplicity of patterns, tensions and
contradictions.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and
significant progress in the Western World towards equality for
people of diverse genders and sexualities, the struggle against
discrimination, homophobia and transphobia remains intense and
is often anchored in a plethora of complex and competing discourses
(Ferfolja, 2015; McGregor, 2008; Nash & Browne, 2015;
Rayside, 2008). Both in Australia and internationally, multiple examples
illustrate how achievements for LGBTQI human rights have
been obscured through resistance or ambiguity towards educational,
social or legal reforms. When Barack Obama's Department of
Education announced federal anti-discriminatory legislation to
protect the rights of transgender students to affirm their gender
identity with respect to toilet usage, media reports of America's
“profound gender anxiety” (Green, 2016, p. 2) overshadowed reforms,
as numerous states announced their defiance of federal
government directives (Redden, 2016). In Australia, Commonwealth
reforms have arguably reduced discrimination against
same-sex couples in areas such as superannuation, social security,
taxation and child support (Australian Government, 2008).
Although legislation for marriage equality was recently passed in
the Australian parliament, many LGBTQI1
identifying individuals
continue to face high degrees of interpersonal and institutional
discrimination, especially in education and healthcare.
Our focus in this paper is on the Western Australian context.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: w.cumming-potvin@murdoch.edu.au (W.M. CummingPotvin),
wmartino@uwo.ca (W. Martino).
1
The term LGBTQI refers to the community of individuals identifying as Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Questioning and/or Intersex. More broadly, the term
may also refer to friends or allies of individuals identifying with the LGBTQI community.
It is acknowledged that terminology with reference to this community is
contested and the community itself is heterogeneous.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Teaching and Teacher Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.04.008
0742-051X/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e48
While the WA School Education Act (1999) clearly stipulates that
government schools must provide for the ‘educational needs of all
children’ (p.2), there is no specific reference to addressing the
needs of LGBTQI students or their representation in the curriculum.
Parallel to WA and national curricula, numerous government and
community organizations have made concerted efforts over many
years to implement equity reform for diversity of gender and
sexuality, suggesting that local educational discourses cannot be
viewed as passive (Thompson, Renshaw, & Mockler, 2015). Despite
the democratic intentions underpinning local organizations, factors
such as restricted funding and resources, exemplify how the politics
of gender and sexuality evolve under complex and contested
social regimes and hierarchies (Butler, 1990; Connell & Pearse,
2015). As per Connell (2011), a societal project of moving towards
gender democratization requires, both locally and globally, a longterm
re-balancing of power, at the institutional and individual
levels. Nonetheless, this local work in WA is testimony to many
emerging educational sites, whereby stakeholders contribute
democratically to disrupting oppression through nuanced pedagogy,
which acknowledges intersections between race, class,
ethnicity, gender and sexuality (Ferfolja, Criss Jones & Ullman,
2015).
Central to this policy ‘dispositif’ (Bailey, 2013) is an understanding
about the role of the Safe Schools Coalition in the provision
of safe and inclusive schools, specifically for programming and
professional development around gender and sexual diversity.
Rather than relegating responsibilities and resources to Education
Departments themselves for such provision, the federal government
funded the Safe Schools Coalition to undertake this role,
thereby allowing schools to opt in or out of such professional
development. In this way, responsibility is shifted from the system,
to individual schools, for ensuring gender and sexuality education.
Notwithstanding, the state government of Victoria decided to take
full responsibility for the Safe Schools Coalition program, severing
ties with the federal policy stipulation to ensure provision of
LGBTQI inclusive education.
Against this policy backdrop, in this paper we are concerned to
investigate the networks of power and surveillance that are
implicated in how a number of English teachers (of English Literature,
English Language and General English) in Western Australia
negotiate the teaching of gender and sexual diversity in their
classrooms. Conscious of not wanting to present teachers as merely
being acted on by policies and legislation in a way that portrays
them as ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault, 1995), we are concerned to report
on the rich insights yielded through our survey data into teachers'
understandings and navigation of regimes of heteronormativity
and cisnormativity, in particular, with respect to curriculum, critical
literacy and pedagogical deployment. Drawing on the theoretical
work of Bakhtin (1981) and Foucault (1995), we uncover a politics
of support and erasure in schools with regards to addressing gender
and sexual diversity. Informed by queer and trans informed epistemologies,
our analysis is mediated through multiple discourses
and networks of power in historical and spatial relations involving
class, race, culture, and place (Butler, 1993; Connell & Pearse, 2015;
De Palma & Jennett, 2010; Lugg & Murphy, 2014; Sedgwick, 1990).
2. Review of literature
Persistently high degrees of homophobia and transphobia in
Australian schools (Hillier et al., 2010; Robinson, Bansel, Denson,
Ovenden, & Davies, 2014) point to the privileging of a heterosexual
and cisgendered world in which individuals are marginalized
on the basis of non-normative gender expression, embodiment and
sexual identity (Butler, 1993; Leonard, Lyons, & Bariola, 2015;
Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2011; Martino & Frank, 2006; Rands,
2009). Colliding with this regime of hetero and cis-normalization
is Australian educational policy, notably, the Melbourne Declaration
(2008), which espouses excellence, and equity, obliging all
government and school sectors to provide students with high
quality education that is free from discrimination based on the
grounds of gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, pregnancy,
ethnicity, relation, health, disability, geographic location or socioeconomic
background. Linked to a discourse of nationhood, the
goals of the Melbourne Declaration resonate with Australia's
signature on numerous international treaties: “Australia values the
central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and
just society …” (2008, p.4). However, irony lies in the exemptions
for religious schools against anti-discriminatory legislation based
on sexual orientation (Sex Discrimination Amendment: Sexual
Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status Act, 2013; Jones,
Torres, & Arminio, 2014). According to Norden (2016) on grounds
of religious freedom, such exemptions allow students and staff to
be treated ‘ … in a way that could seriously impact on their proper
growth and development, their freedom of expression, and their
sense of personal values dignity if they are effectively denied the
right to express the divergence of sexual identities that exist with
any staff group or student community.’ (p. 3).
Aligned with the Melbourne Declaration, The Australian Curriculum
(ACARA, 2016), advocates for a nation which meets the
needs of all young Australians to become actively informed citizens.
Explicit is the expectation that personalized curriculum will be
achieved through teachers' guidance of all students towards successful
lifelong learning. Under general capabilities, numerous
interrelated components appear useful for scaffolding students
(and school personnel) to develop an appreciation of diverse genders
and sexualities. For example, through collaborative literacy
tasks, students can: develop empathy and respect for others; understand
the impact their values and behaviours have on others; be
open to new ideas and question assumptions and meaning in texts.
But absent from the discourse are references to LGBTQI lived and
embodied experiences, suggesting a language of silencing, which
fails to support the rights of people of diverse genders or sexualities
(Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015). When advice is provided regarding student
diversity, ACARA's examples are limited to disability, gifted
and talented and English as an Additional Language or Dialect.
Furthermore, as per Blackburn and Smith (2010) and Kumashiro
(2002), to combat heteronormativity and cis-normativity, educators
must go beyond simple inclusion to present LGBTQI identities
as intersecting with other factors, such as gender, class, race, etc.
In contrast to ACARA's limited conception of student diversity,
literacy is defined more broadly as students developing ‘knowledge,
skills and dispositions to interpret and use language confidently
for learning and communicating in and out of school and for
participating effectively in society.’ (retrieved 29/11/17 from http://
www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/curriculum/f-10?
layout¼1#level1). From this perspective, becoming literate involves
interconnected practices such as reading, writing, speaking,
listening and viewing, with print and digital texts, and is aligned
with sociocultural research, extending literacy beyond classrooms
to encompass everyday family, community and institutional apprenticeships
(Cumming-Potvin & Sanford, 2015; Luke & Freebody,
1999; The New London Group, 2000). Outlined in the Australian
Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority's English curriculum,
it is conceivable that student literacy dispositions and behaviours,
such as “comparing and evaluating a range of
representations of individuals and groups in different historical,
social and cultural contexts”, be developed through literature, to
facilitate critical discussions about human rights (retrieved 29/11/
16 from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/
curriculum/f-10?layout¼1#level10). Nonetheless, despite the
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e4836
value of literature for opening up critical conversations, few representations
of LGBTQI young people exist in the Australian Curriculum
or the English classroom (Blackburn, 2005; Rhodes, 2009;
Thein, 2013).
In parallel, The Education Act of WA (1999) recognizes the rights
and responsibilities of educational stakeholders, such as all WA
children receiving a ‘school education’. Whilst the discourse
regarding the equitable nature of this education is largely missing
and the mention of LGBTQI topics is absent, the Act clearly stipulates
that government schools must provide for the “educational
needs of all children”. (p. 2) More pointedly, The Western Australian
School Curriculum and Standards Authority (2013), which resonates
with the Melbourne Declaration (2008) and ACARA (2016),
highlights guiding discourses such as concern and respect for
others, commitment to pursuing knowledge and achieving one's
potential, accepting one's self and others, social, civil and environmental
responsibility. (retrieved 28/11/17 from http://
k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/resources/outline-downloads).
Embracing diversity is viewed as all students' right to an equitable
education, which is upheld by the United Nation's Conventions on
the Rights of the Child. Also suggesting commitment to student
rights, The WA SCSA (2013) states that through materials, procedures
and policies, education must be inclusive of all students'
strengths and needs. “Differences in … ethnicity, language (linguistic
background), culture, gender, socioeconomic status,
disability, sexual orientation or geographical location should not be
allowed to detract from a student's access to the high quality education
that is their right.” (Retrieved 29/11/17 from https://
k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/principles/guiding-principles/
student-diversity).
Still, challenging heteronormativity and cisnormativity to instil
inclusive school ideologies and practices remains an urgent issue in
Australia and internationally; significant aspects of this process
include teachers and the formal and informal curriculum (Garcia &
Slesaransky-Poe, 2010; Taylor et al., 2011). Although The National
Council of Teachers of English and The National Association for the
Education of Young Children have recommended many measures
to assist teachers to incorporate LGBTQI themed literature in
American elementary and secondary classrooms, similar to Clark
(2010) and Blackburn (2004, 2012), Thein (2013) noted that
LGBTQI topics are rarely included in the pedagogy of language arts
teachers and school personnel intervene inconsistently to combat
negative comments about homosexuality or gender expression.
Puchner and Klein (2011) explained this phenomenon as an
informal dichotomy between teachers being sympathetic towards
the rights of LGBTQI students, but preferring to re-direct uncomfortable
questions, for example, to health classes or parents. In our
own research, we have reported similar conclusions in Australia as
teachers appeared to self-censure their pedagogical repertoire due
to discomfort with the topic of non-normative genders or sexualities
or the perceived risk of being admonished by school administrators
or parents (Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2011).
Acknowledging the limitations of a literature-based approach in
a social justice curriculum, Blackburn (2012) suggested nonetheless
that poems, writing and narratives can provide agency to those
who are silenced. In a similar vein, Pearce, Gardiner, CummingPotvin,
& Martino, 2016 contend that infusing LGBTQI themed
literature in classrooms can extend pedagogical knowledge to
address questions pertaining to heteronormativity, trans inclusivity
and gender democratization. Therefore, critical literacy, which encourages
students to understand and challenge complex themes
from diverse perspectives, can represent a significant element in
combatting heteronormativity and cisgenderism schools (Logan,
Lasswell, Hood, & Watson, 2014; Martino & Cumming-Potvin,
2017; Woolley, 2015). Countering the dominant neo-liberal
political climate, which serves to normalize students and essentialize
literacy in Australian schools in technical rationalist terms,
this article is inspired by the traditions of queer and trans theory in
which teachers aim to help students understand and change the
world through addressing broader questions of cisnormative and
heteronormative privileging (Kumashiro, 2002; Rands, 2009;
Stryker, 2006). Drawing on key concepts from Bakhtin (1981) and
Foucault (1995), the present article offers queer and trans informed
understandings regarding the perceptions of WA high school English
teachers as they navigate the complex territory of text selection
in relation to developing safe, welcoming and inclusive
school environments, which respect the rights of all students, in
particular those who self-affirm as LGBTQI.
3. Theoretical framework
To unravel the complex discourses of high school English
teachers surrounding the rituals of heteronormativity and cisgenderism
in schools, we thread together theoretical concepts of
Bakhtin (1981) in the area of language and literacy and Foucault's
(1995) seminal work on punishment, discipline and the panoptic
power. Firstly, we draw on a Bakhtinian (1981) perspective, which
interprets language as multi-layered, dialogic and co-constructed
through present and past speakers and interlocutors. Linking language
to sociocultural history and a “contemporary reality” of individuals
who hold diverse opinions, Bakhtin (1981) asserted that
from “… diversity of speech and voice, there comes about a new
orientation in the world and in time (including the ‘absolute past of
tradition’ through personal experience and investigation.” (p. 44);
hence, language represents “… a living mix of varied and opposing
voices [raznorecivost’],” which develops and renews itself. (p.67).
Of particular interest for our analysis is Bakhtin's explanation of
language diversity via heteroglossia, referring to all utterances,
which are characterized by tensions between attempting to separate
texts and respecting “the power of the particular context” in
which utterances are made (Holquist, 1981, p. 8). Although an individual's
voice may be projected on the surface as unified, on a
deeper level, Bakhtin argues that utterances express a multitude of
meanings, some intentional, others unintentional (Holquist, 1981).
In this sense, words can be viewed as sliding through layered
‘loopholes’, which encapsulate semantics and temporality; indeed
in the past, present and future, the meaning of our words are
imbued with personal experiences, contexts, indecisiveness and
on-going reflection (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 35).
Originally conceived for literary analysis of the novel, Bakhtin's
(1981, 1986) theoretical concepts have been increasingly of interest
to educational scholars since the 1990s (Matusov, 2007), particularly
for literacy and teacher education. For example, Britzman
(1991) argued that presenting a range of dialogic discourses to
student teachers, widens their opportunities to conceptualize their
own practices and negotiate professional teacher identities.
Drawing on the work of Bakhtin (1981), Howie (2008) also asserted
that acknowledging English teachers' past, present and future can
develop ethical understandings for the “teacher self” (p.103),
particularly in a neo-liberal “climate of contestation” (p. 103).
Of significant interest to our analysis, scholars in the field of
gender and sexuality (Francis, 2012; Killelea McEntarfer, 2016;
Ruffolo, 2009) have highlighted the work of Bakhtin (1981) in
underscoring the fundamental role that language in context plays
in nuancing theories regarding the performance of gender and
sexuality and the queer politics of becoming. Channelled largely
through a complex and sometimes discordant repertoire of postmodernism
and poststructuralism, queer theory rejects polarized
and simplified explanations of human experiences, with proponents
arguing ‘ … that human cognizance of lived possibilities is
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e48 37
more complicated and subject to variation than essentialized, binary
categories of male/female, man/woman, heterosexual/homosexual
… ’ (Nash, 2010, p. 581). We acknowledge that some trans
scholars have expressed reticence over the application of queer and
feminist studies, for example, through the emphasis on Butler's
(1990) work, which highlights the role of gender performativity
and language, while seemingly skipping over individually constructed
knowledge and experiences (Namaste, 2000; Rubin, 2003;
Stryker, 2006). However, more recently, Stryker (2017) argued that
in sections of trans communities, Butler's (1990) metaphor of
gender as ‘bodily inscriptions’ (p. 128) has sometimes been historically
misinterpreted as reductionist acts of bodily performance,
thereby suggesting a potential misalignment with the lived realities
of transgender individuals. Rather, Stryker (2017) elucidates that
Butler's evolving premise of gender encompasses broad notions of
performance, language and communication, within complex contexts
of reality and representation. Thus, gender includes ‘ … all of
the innumerable acts of performing it: how we dress, move, speak,
touch, look. Gender is like a language we use to communicate
ourselves. The implication of this argument is that transgender
genders are as real as any others, and they are achieved in the same
fundamental way.’ (2017, p.52). In this regard, deploying the work
of Bakhtin (1981) to promote conversations about non-normative
gender and sexuality in educational contexts, we also attempt to
reconcile some of the troubled conceptual spaces concerning the
embodiment of transgender individuals, which have divided queer
theory, early waves of feminism and transgender studies.
Concepts such as dialogism, argued Ruffolo (2009) speak to
“highly complex negotiations that do not reduce bodies to their
‘individual’ contributions …” (p. 67); in this sense, all language is
connected, while utterances have the potential to create something
new, based on socio-historical contexts. Heteroglossia represents a
framework which respects the contexts of “dialogical becomings”
(p. 61) and unveils the depth and tensions inherent in utterances
(Ruffolo, 2009). From this framework, the utterances of a single
individual represent diverse viewpoints, which coalesce and collide
through the past, present and future and are mediated through
sociocultural and historical circumstances (Bakhtin, 1981).
As educational researchers increasingly highlight the tacit and
active mechanisms of heteronormative practices in schools
(Robinson et al., 2014; Sauntson, 2013, p. 395), Francis (2012)
argued that the appeal of Bakhtin lies with an alignment to feminist
and Foucauldian lenses. Such perspectives consider present
and past socio economic politics and shifting societal norms, “…
illuminating the social constructions of ‘good’, ‘virtuous’, ‘appropriate’
and ‘natural’” (Francis, 2012, p. 3). As such, Foucault's (1995)
concepts of power and surveillance are particularly helpful for
examining how the interplay between language, English teachers'
perceptions and institutional curricula is implicated in regimes of
heteronormativity, heterosexism and cisgenderism. Foucault (1970,
1978) argued that over many historical periods, topics such as
sexuality have been socially constructed, and regulated through
institutional mechanisms, which are upheld through factors such
as pedagogy, libraries and textbooks; such regimes of truth force
binary divisions to exclude certain categories of individuals from
society, such as prisoners, ‘homosexuals’ and individuals suffering
from mental illness.
It is this unveiling of regulatory practices to expose institutional
fallacies about “what is normal and thus what is abnormal” (Ball,
1990, p. 6), which has attracted many educational scholars to the
work of Foucault, especially as it relates to the politics and history of
gender and sexuality. In teacher education, Goldstein (2004) and
Bushnell (2003) argued that Foucault's work is useful for unpacking
a new neo-liberal panopticon, one that relies on fear and lethargy of
individuals, but also on media formulated crises and accountability
measures, to legitimate American educational strategies such as No
Child Left Behind. In the Australian high school Catholic setting, a
limited number of researchers have also drawn on Foucault's
concept of regimes of truth to interrogate how adolescent boys
constructed and performed genders in alignment with networks of
power (see for example, Martino, 2000). More recently, drawing on
a Foucauldian framework to study Australian schools, Gray, Harris,
and Jones (2016) concluded that LGBTQI teachers are marginalized
through “a space of exclusion”, through which discourses construct
and re-construct heteronormativity (see also De Palma & Atkinson,
2006). Conversely, such scholars also reveal how teachers actively
challenge such discourses in counter-hegemonic ways through
their own pedagogical practices and relations in local school
communities.
In this sense, in secondary and primary schools, power involves
multiple processes, patterns, origins and locations, which ‘ …
overlap, repeat, or imitate one another, support one another,
distinguish themselves from one another according to their domain
of application … ’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 137). Of particular utility for
our analysis is Foucault's (1995) appropriation of Bentham's (1843)
metaphor the panopticon, to explain the constant and allconsuming
nature of school surveillance via the architectural image
of the “tower”, which is located at the centre of “an angular
building” (p. 200). Extending Bentham's metaphor, Foucault (1995)
elaborates on how this architectural arrangement offers productive
insights into the working of power through the operation of surveillance
as a spatial and material phenomenon that results in selfregulatory
practices. This notion of panoptic power with its selfregulatory
effects is helpful in making sense of how teachers
navigate and negotiate discourses of gender and sexuality in the
English classroom.
4. Methodology and methods
The study's research methodology privileged understanding of
the local context in relation to the world, society and its institutions
through sustained processes and lived experiences (Tracy, 2013).
Funded by a Young and Well Cooperative Centre research grant, the
study aimed to develop inclusive educational communities, which
respect the human rights of all students, including those who selfaffirm
as LGBTQI, non-binary or otherwise outside of the ‘heterosexual
matrix’. 2
Valuing the fundamental right of every child to an
education of quality, inclusive educational communities respect
and represent differences; such communities are committed to
breaking down actual and potential forms of exclusion and provide
LGBTQI affirming students with a voice to construct their identities
(Gilles & Carrington, 2004; Singh, 2011; Slee, 2001; Trueba, Takaki,
Munoz, & Nieto, 1997).
Conducted in Western Australia, this largely qualitative project
featured on-going collaboration between the researchers and key
stakeholders from the LGBTQI community. To capture contextual
factors for making sense of data, qualitative methods aimed to
examine participants' perceptions in relation to individual experiences
(Hennink, Hutter, & Bailey, 2011). This article focuses on
2
Aiming to improve well-being for young people, The Young and Well Cooperative
Research Centre (Young and Well CRC) has united researchers, practitioners
and young people through partnerships between universities, community organizations
and the Australian Commonwealth Government. The Young and Well CRC
has collaborated with approximately 75 partners, such as WA Aids Council
(Freedom Centre), Beyond Blue, National LGBTI Health Alliance, The Commission for
Children and Young People, City of Melbourne, Department of Justice Victoria,
Murdoch University, The Australian National University, Queensland University of
Technology, University of South Australia, Western Sydney University, Edith Cowan
University, The University of Melbourne, Flinders University and RMIT University.
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e4838
online qualitative survey data, which investigated the perceptions
and pedagogical reflections of high school English teachers
regarding topics inclusive of diversity in gender and sexuality. In
this way, the research strategy did not attempt to control variables,
but to ascertain a ‘snapshot’ of the English teachers' thinking at one
point in time (Kelly, Clark, Brown, & Sitzia, 2003). The data provided
glimpses into teachers' negotiations of employing LGBTQI
themed texts under specific heteronormative and cisnormative
conditions of surveillance. With guidance and approval from the
Institutional Human Research Ethics' Committee, open-ended
survey questions were carefully planned so that participants
could articulate their perceptions regarding questions such as: In
your view, to what extent are secondary schools providing a safe
and welcoming environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
queer or intersex (LGBTQI) students? To what extent do you think
that LGBTQI issues are included or addressed in the secondary
English curriculum? Are you aware of specific resources or texts
that deal with LGBTQI issues or themes, and are used in the English
classroom? Please describe these resources or texts, and how useful
you consider them to be.
68 WA high school English teachers completed the online survey,
which was distributed through LGBTQI news sites, Ally groups,
professional networks, etc. In terms of teacher profiles, approximately
60% of participants had more than 15 years teaching
experience, with the remainder having less than 15 years teaching
experience. Approximately 70% of participants were currently
teaching in the government school system, while the remaining
participants were teaching in Catholic, Independent or other systems
(with approximately 6% not currently teaching). Approximately
70% of participants were teaching in metropolitan areas
with the remainder generally teaching in suburban, regional or
remote settings. Although response items such as genderqueer,
transgender or other were provided, approximately 90% of respondents
self-identified as female with the remaining respondents
self-identifying as male. Approximately 70% of
respondents were born in Australia, with the remainder born
overseas. The first language of approximately 95% of respondents
was English with the remaining respondents having English and/or
at least one other language as their first language. Approximately
70% of respondents were aged over 45 years, with the remainder
being between 44 and under 25 years.
To promote reflexivity as well as data triangulation, researchers'
reflections were significant for unravelling dynamic qualitative
processes (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). Several researchers (Adams &
Jones, 2011; McDonald, 2013, 2016) have highlighted synergies
between reflexivity and queer theory, such as breaking down presuppositions
about what is normal in terms of constructing
knowledge and identities. McDonald (2013) in particular, adopted a
stance of ‘queer reflexivity’ to designate a ‘reflexive questioning of
the categories we use to identify people while recognizing ‘the
shifting nature of the researcher and participants over the course of
the research process’ (p. 127). Moreover, Ferguson (2013) argued
that to transcend ‘stagnant forms of scientific discourse’ (p. 1) while
embracing queer and trans approaches, qualitative research demands
a non-binary interpretation of reflexivity, to allow for
creativity and openness in data analysis. In this spirit, through a
constant comparative approach, the researchers coded data with
developing themes, first focused, and subsequently linked to concepts
from the literature (Charmaz, 2006; Jones et al., 2014), while
recognizing the shifting nature of power in relation to gender,
sexuality, social class, race, etc.
Undertaking an iterative process of analysis, linking theory and
practice, the authors acknowledged their own subjectivities while
attempting to more deeply understand the world as represented
through the participants (Crotty, 1998). For example, “Author 1”, a
privileged white, middle class cis-identifying, heterosexual woman
had been sensitized through her reading of queer and antioppressive
literature to systemic and intersectional forces at play
in the lives of gender and sexually diverse individuals (Kumashiro,
2002). “Author 2”, also a privileged, white middle-class cis-identifying
gay male with a history of classroom English teaching in high
schools also brought a lived experience and a queer and trans
informed epistemological grounding in reading literature centred
on the lives and accounts of gender and sexually diverse people
(Ahmed, 2006; Lane, 2009; Namaste, 2000; Stryker, 2006). While
laying no clear claims to a subaltern status, such sensitivities and
access to anti-oppressive, queer and trans informed scholarship
equipped the researchers to understand their own identifications
and locations in networked power relations, as gendered, raced,
classed and able-bodied individuals, and attuned them to practices
of privileging and othering in their own lives (Fine, 1994; Haraway,
1988).
5. Presentation of results
5.1. Inclusive secondary schools: a safe and welcoming environment
When invited to comment on the extent to which secondary
schools were providing a safe and welcoming environment for
LGBTQI students, approximately 75% of participants responded
negatively or drew attention to competing negative and positive
discourses. A recurring theme highlighted contextual factors, such
as socio-economic status, religion, student population and educational
programs, which were perceived to mediate school environments
in relation to openness towards LGBTQI human rights.
Acknowledging the multiple voices inherent in an individual's reflections,
the dialogic nature of utterances can be framed through
Bakhtin's (1981) concept of heteroglossia. For example, T 25 evoked
complexity in her “experience of a single sex girls'” school, where
the environment was “safe, physically and emotionally, but probably
not yet welcoming”. This utterance is illustrative of the heteroglossic
tensions at play in this local single sex girls' school
context, where on one level, T25 seems to acknowledge that there
is a degree of security on the basis of gender affiliation and
containment. However, T25's initial thought is undercut by a realisation
that these spaces are simultaneously uncomfortable and
precarious in terms of an anticipatory assurance of well-being,
which is signified by the qualifier ‘not yet’. There is also another
layer of analysis here that speaks to a particular cisnormative logics
and binary framing of gender (Rands, 2009; Serano, 2007), denying
embodied differences and identifications which exist for any group
of female students.
In addition, T 34 commented that,
‘ … some schools are working towards it [creating safe and inclusive
environments] with Ally groups and supporting days like
'Wear it Purple’ and IDAHoBiT, [International Day Against Homophobia,
Biphobia and Transphobia], which at least allows
LGBTIQ students to feel supported and acknowledged on a
couple of days through the year. Some schools also have adopted
the “Beyond That's So Gay” program to try and eliminate homophobic
language from the culture of some schools.’
Here, T34 reported that a safe and inclusive environment ‘ …
VASTLY depends on the school, whether or not it is single sex or coed,
the socio-economic and/or cultural backgrounds of the majority
of students.’ Identifying layers of intervention, T34 begins by
acknowledging the role that single day LGBTQI events can play in
creating a safe and inclusive environment, but suggests the need for
more sustained intervention over time to address ‘homophobic
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e48 39
language’. The heteroglossic and polyphonic voice of the teacher is
signalled by “at least”, reflecting a degree of tension or slippage in
discourse, which oscillates between varying levels of awareness,
from an understanding that one-off events are insufficient,
although not entirely inadequate, in terms of addressing a politics
of recognition of gender and sexual diversity. T34 then shifts to
considering a more programmatic intervention for eliminating
anti-homophobic language, but qualifies that safety and inclusivity
depend on the individual school, including mediating factors such
as school type, socio-economic and/or cultural backgrounds.
Noteworthy about the layered dimensions of awareness is that
there appears to be some foreclosure around the need to address
transphobia and bi-phobia, which speaks to many teachers' limited
levels of awareness with regards addressing gender and sexual
diversity (Rands, 2009).
Bakhtin's (1981) distinction in heteroglossia between authoritative
discourses and internally persuasive discourses helps to
elucidate internal tensions within the utterances of some respondents.
Authoritative discourse refers to individuals' tendency
to assimilate external ideologies, often through allegiance to institutions
or political power, which preclude questioning or negotiation,
while Internally Persuasive Discourse symbolizes one's
inner speech, which is open to dialogical relations. Internally
Persuasive Discourse may also oppose authority through personal
opinion, which is not necessarily supported by external authorities
or acknowledged in society. Some teachers, for example, commented
that religion impacted school environments in relation to
LGBTQI rights and the extent to which LGBTQI topics are addressed
in the secondary English curriculum. T 9 indicated, for example,
that “Catholic education has a long way to go”, while T44 drew on
their experience teaching in a Catholic school to describe how this
context mediated staff discourses “… it is difficult for staff to openly
support gay rights etc. although most do.” Acknowledging that
teachers were cautious in anticipation of parental “backlash”
regarding LGBTQI topics, T44 elaborated that “for obvious reasons
… we have to be careful what is said to students in case parents get
angry”. Highlighting the complex layers of tension across school
environments, T43's utterances pointed to range of mediating
factors, such as: diverse teacher voices with ‘individual classes’,
‘Catholic teaching about homosexuality in Religious Education’, a
trend of ‘homosexual’ issues being absent from the curriculum and
a caution about maintaining ‘ … the Catholic ethos of the school’:
I think this depends largely on the teachers involved. The
Catholic teaching about homosexuality is certainly taught in
Religious Education; however, it depends on the teacher what
they say to individual classes. Homosexuality is not usually an
issue explored in our texts studied, as we have to be careful to
maintain the Catholic ethos of the school.
As per Bakhtin (1981), such utterances point not only to a
dominant doctrine, but also to the multiplicity of individual voices
on which dialogization depends, with language differences
evolving through diverse themes and dispersing ‘ … into the rivulets
and droplets of social heteroglossia … ’ (p. 288). Embedded in
the heteroglossic nature of such utterances are tensions between
traditional and innovative forces; as language develops and shifts
through past, present and future, temporality plays a role. For
example, in an Irish educational context imbued with Catholic
traditions, O'Donoghue and Guerin (2017) argued that a complex
tapestry exists with regards to implementing new school interventions
amidst practices such as homophobic and transphobic
bullying; teachers' and students' unease with discussing such
topics and the absence or presence of school stakeholder relationships
can support or restrict the application of interventions.
Furthermore, Bailey (2016) recounted the complexity of introducing
new policy guidelines aiming to counter homophobic and
transphobic bullying in a mainly denominational primary Irish
education system, which has historically, defined transsexuality
and homosexuality as a sin. Unveiling tension between T43's
internally persuasive discourse indicating that inclusion of LGBTQI
topics was complex and mitigated through Catholic teachings as
well as the approach of individual teachers, T44 asserted that in
Catholic schools “… no student would be discriminated against on
the grounds of these issues …. ”
Emerging from this micro-layer of language pertaining to the
individual student in a Catholic setting are broader concerns about
human rights and anti-discriminatory legislation, speaking to
Bakhtin's (1981) assertion that language remains inherently dialogic
and positioned through the colliding interests of multiple
social groups. A salient example is illustrated through the Ontario
Government's 2012 passing of Bill 13, which allowed Gay-Straight
Alliances to be established in all public and private schools in
Ontario, Canada. This legislation was met with lengthy, mediatized
debate, particularly between the Ontario government and one
Catholic school board that banned Gay-Straight Alliances, based on
the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association's position that
GSAs countered Catholic values and traditions (Martino, 2014;
Liboro, Travers, & St John, 2015; Nonato, 2012). As the Ontario
English Catholic Teachers' Association supported student rights to
establish GSAs (Boudreau, 2012) and some students resisted the
banning of GSAs, the heteroglossic nature of the debate intensified
as concerns were raised over the terminology defining GSAs, which
could be perceived as excluding some members of the LGBTQI
community, such as trans or bisexual people (Pike, 2012). But more
profoundly, the institutional reaction against GSAs in Ontario
unleashed an epistemological critique about the legitimacy of
government funding in a Catholic system which appeared to breach
the constitutional rights of LGBTQI self-affirming students via a
doctrine of ‘love of the sinner, hate the sin’, thereby unveiling
contradictions in pastoral care. (Martino, 2014, p. 1; Callaghan,
2014, p. 29). Whilst Rasmussen (2015) argued that differences between
the Canadian, Irish and Australian education systems must
be considered when contemplating rights for religious and sexual
freedom, and religious exemptions, such controversies on the international
front reinforce Bakhtin's (1981) premise that words are
necessarily imbued in a complex contour of semantics as well as
historical, political and legislative contexts.
As the theme of discrimination was re-voiced through teachers'
responses, T1 identified their school as a place where bullying
through misplaced humour stifles individuals' rights: “It still seems
to be a place where joking about being different is okay but being it
is not.” Bakhtin (1981) argued that all situations are historical, with
individual and systemic shifts in social boundaries unfolding slowly
in complex and interrelated ways. Significantly, the image of an
unsafe place alludes to Western Australia's strong legacy of homophobia
in education, public services, accommodation, etc.
(Flood & Hamilton, 2005; Kendall, 1996). Until 2002, WA remained
the only Australian jurisdiction to possess an age of consent of 21
years for same sex relations, whereas for heterosexuals, the age of
consent was 16 years (Law Reform, Decriminalization of Sodomy
Act, 1989, WA Parliament). Equally discriminatory, until 2002, the
1989 Education Act's proselytizing clause, stipulated that WA
teachers were not allowed to promote homosexuality, which
limited the type of information teachers could provide to students
and included a stipulation that promoting homosexuality was
against the law (Carbery, 2014; Malek, 2006).
Another recurring theme regarding the extent to which secondary
schools are providing a safe and welcoming environment
for LGBTQI affirming students highlighted the allegiance of
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e4840
teachers to the school in which they taught, a discourse which
positively underscored one institution's openness over the failure
of others to foster such necessary conditions. T20 stated, for
example, that although the majority of schools were not providing
a warm and welcoming environment for LGBT identifying students,
she was “proud of the response” of her school. Other schools,
continued T 20 “… don't have the transparency that our school
has”. As comparisons reverberated across participant responses, it
can be argued that these teachers re-articulated competing narratives
of allegiance and school performativity, resulting in a process
of differentiating their own schools by ‘othering’ others deemed to
be less inclusive.
Foucault (1995) argued that as individuals become entangled
with the disciplinary principle of power, the institutional gaze is
distributed and re-distributed from the hierarchy and throughout
internal mechanisms, such as daily rituals, ceremonies, values and
attitudes. Hence, across the physical design of the school, as well in
broader architectural structures, the individual begins to take responsibility
for regulating their own behaviour and that of others,
in a complex network of self-observation and observation. Such
regulatory norms, which involve some teacher participants
demarcating other school spaces as not as inclusive, evoke a certain
performative enactment of a celebratory safe schools anti-bullying
discourse whose liberal renderings reflect a more official articulation
of a centralized equity policy. In this sense, it is a manifestation
of panoptic power articulated at the micro level of the individual
teacher's citation of an institutional norm and discourse in constituting
their schools as certain sorts of places. For instance, a bad
school is one that does not provide a safe space or endorse an antibullying
policy.
In this regard, T20, T43 and T26 engage in a surveillance of sorts
that points to broader judgments about the quality of schools as
safe and welcoming spaces. For example, T26 affirmed, “At our
school we celebrate difference and students report that they feel
safe and welcome.” Similarly, T26 indicated, “Some schools
discriminate against students who don't conform.” T26 proposed
that at previous schools, some students “… were not allowed to
take a gay partner to the school ball”. Similarly, T 43 recounted that
in her current school, ‘the environment is excellent and continuing
to get better.’ However, at T43's previous school, “… it would be a
disaster for such students to openly admit their circumstances”.
The allure of such narratives which involve teachers differentiating
schools on the basis of their commitment to inclusivity, is elucidated
through the Foucauldian informed work of Ball (2000),
arguing that individuals and organizations produce fabrications
which are inspired by impression management, policy priorities
and constraints (see Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2017). In this
vein, teachers actively engage with official discourses about antidiscriminatory
and safe schools in ways that highlight particular
value judgments about the quality of a school culture concerning
inclusivity, and how it is being enacted more broadly by other
stakeholders.
5.2. The english curriculum: addressing LGBTQI issues
When teachers were asked to what extent they thought LGBTQI
issues were included or addressed in the secondary English curriculum,
approximately 83% of respondents indicated such issues
were addressed somewhat, or not included. An overriding theme
highlighted the perception that English teachers could employ
certain texts to provide opportunities for students to engage with
topics surrounding gender and sexuality (see also Pearce et al.,
2016). However, the effectiveness of pedagogical moments to
disrupt heteronormativity and cis-normativity appeared mediated
by numerous contextual factors, such as text selection, attitudes of
teachers and the school community, with many responses referring
to the limitations imposed by an external Authoritative Discourse
(Bakhtin, 1981). Bushnell (2003) argued that external discourses,
linked to recent educational reforms, might subordinate teachers
and limit their professional opportunities to act autonomously.
Rather than being afforded opportunities to act and reflect collaboratively
within their communities, teachers are monitored daily
by schools and externally based institutions within a panopticon of
surveillance (Foucault, 1995).
For example, T32 raised the issue of how surveillance of a
curricular nature, was regulated by mandatory text selection in
English. “Some texts we study do allow the exploration of these
[LGBTQI] issues but they are not mandatory”. Similarly, T 44
detailed their perceptions about the curriculum's insufficient inclusivity,
while alluding to restrictions placed on teachers' text
selection and opportunities to facilitate class discussions: “I think it
could be a lot more inclusive but we are restricted to what types of
texts and the depth that we go into when discussing it as a class.”
Whilst T21 also invoked their pedagogical practice employing a
particular text, limitations related once again to parental surveillance
in a religious environment. “I usually do address this by use of
Mum's the Word. However, some of the students at my present
school will have to be excluded on religious grounds and a parent's
request.”
Underpinning contextual constraints in the English classroom,
the perpetual flow between teachers' external and internal surveillance
and regulation (Foucault, 1995) can also serve to obscure
or erase the representation of LGBTQI lives. For example, below,
T4's language candidly acknowledges how the absence of texts
depicting lesbian or transgender students in the English curriculum
may limit the discourse defining ‘normality’. On a broader level, T
4's comments affirm that since the 1970s, characters, which selfidentify
with the LGBTQI community, have been increasingly
depicted in multi-modal texts (Logan et al., 2014):
In Year 10, we study the novel Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen. A
minor character, Mikey, is gay and has left home because his
family do not accept this … but students accept him and do not
bat an eyelid about his sexuality. Novels/films with characters
who are gay are no longer unusual. They have been normalised.
Nobody cares or notices. It is no big deal. However, I am yet to
teach any texts which deal with lesbian or transgender characters
….
But disquiet lingers regarding the portrayal of LGBTQI characters
and assumptions about educational stakeholders' responses to
texts concerning diverse gender and sexuality. While the desire to
include LGBTQI perspectives in young adult literature is laudable
(Banks, 2009), T4's testimony alludes to the unsettling power of
heteronormativity and cis-normativity, which can be subtly produced
“… as much through what is not iterated as through what is
explicitly stated or enacted.” (Saunston, 2013, p. 395). With respect
to T4's acknowledgment that trans or lesbian literature had not yet
been utilized in the English classroom, Frohard-Dourlent (2016)
argued that although they may be supportive of trans identifying
students, teachers can be restricted by their own cisnormativity
and normalized ways of communicating with students, as well as
the tendency for school policies to focus mainly on anti-bullying
practices. More generally, Bedford (2009) commented that
empowering teachers is only one aspect of transforming schools to
challenge heteronormativity and gender binaries, which also requires
engagement from other school stakeholders as well as those
from the broader community; reinforcing this recommendation,
Kosciw, Greytak, Giga, Villenas, and Danischewski (2016) underscored
the importance of comprehensive policies, in which
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e48 41
teachers and other school staff members collaborate to support
LGBTQI self-affirming students.
As participants described the limited extent to which LGBTQI
issues were included or addressed in the English curriculum, the
theme of surveillance and self-surveillance was reiterated through
a number of teacher responses. Whilst the subject of English can
been characterized by a centralized force attempting to pull
together a multiplicity of voices (Bakhtin, 1981), the theme of surveillance
also points paradoxically to the work of Garcia and
Slesaransky-Poe (2010) who concluded that in many cases, the
absence of intervention to interrupt heteronormativity, and we
would add, cisnormativity, through curriculum, was related to
teachers' “lack of knowledge about how to respond appropriately,
as well their own blinders about personally held prejudices and
assumptions.” (p. 245) (see Payne & Smith, 2014).
T5's perceptions, for instance, focused on how the appropriateness
of LGBTQI content may be queried, and how students may
react negatively. “ …. t is an area which is still cloudy in terms of
appropriate content for some and may also illicit a negative
response from students” (T5). Acknowledging that LGBTQI issues
are included in the Curriculum in “… a limited way,” T41 re-voiced
the idea of appropriateness, asserting “… that is as is should be.” In
this case, T41 highlighted a perception that high school students
were ‘impressionable’ and introducing LGBTQI issues could provoke
confusion in adolescents. “Students at this age are very
impressionable and making this any sort of a focus could cause
emotional confusion” (T41). In this vein, tensions between teachers'
language and attitudes are significant, with LGBTQI topics typically
perceived as irrelevant or uncomfortable for educational institutions
(Carpenter & Lee, 2010; Sedgwick, 1990).
5.3. Deploying critical literacies: against the grain of surveillance
and self-surveillance
Approximately 51% of respondents indicated that they were
aware of specific resources or texts dealing with LGBTQI issues,
with 35% of respondents describing these resources and their
usefulness. These teachers highlighted the novel as the most popular
text form. Other genres included films, television series, short
stories, plays, classical literature, (e.g. the work of Shakespeare),
still images, newspapers and non-fiction texts, such as documentaries.
A number of respondents narratively framed text selection,
describing their pedagogical repertoire as secondary English
teachers facilitating critical literacy discussions, which could be
viewed as pushing away from a centrifugal force (Bakhtin, 1981).
T 8 commented on their work deconstructing notions about
gender. “I use a short story called 'Blurring the Boundaries' where
the narrator's identity remains concealed but presumed to be male.
It is revealed that they are female only in the final paragraph. I use it
as a discussion point.” Although this short story limits gender
representations to male and female, T8's deployment of the subject
pronoun ‘I’ in relation to interrogating texts and facilitating a discussion
with students appeared to embody an internally persuasive
discourse, which potentially brushes against the grain of regulatory
external surveillance (Bakhtin, 1981; Foucault, 1995). Similarly, T9
describes below how they used the novel Destroying Avalon (to
facilitate “conversation about gender and sexuality”), but due to
surveillance and the potential of parental backlash, the text had not
been ‘revisited’.
I have used Destroying Avalon (Kate McCaffery, 2006) in a year 10
classroom before, which did have some success with driving
conversation about gender and sexuality, however the faculty
frowned upon the use of the text due to the possibility of it
offending parents, and it has not been revisited this year (T9).
T 9's testimony about the censuring of Destroying Avalon
(McCaffery, 2006) in the English classroom illustrates how through
surveillance, disciplinary power is woven systematically through
the practices, aims and economy of an institution (Foucault, 1995).
The integrated system of power is exerted through “… a network of
relations from top to bottom, but also to a certain extent from
bottom to top and laterally; this network ‘holds’ the whole together
and traverses it in its entirety with effects of power that derive from
one another …” (Foucault, 1995, p. 177). Thus, it can be argued that
through a top down intervention, the “faculty” exerted disciplinary
power over one teacher's text selection. Yet the power was also
linked to the lateral network embodying the parental community,
or in this case the fear of “offending parents”; enacted through
surveillance, such power plays out in teachers' pedagogical repertoire
through caution or avoidance and is re-circulated across the
institution (Malins, 2016; Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2011;
Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2014; Taylor et al., 2011).
Despite this curricular censorship, performed and effected
through institutional gestures, attitudes, images and discourses
(Butler, 1990), T20 related how they broadened textual and thematic
selection by presenting a short story and a feature film which
engaged students to unpack representations of gender, sexual diversity,
race, marginalization and sub-cultures, through a lens of
building alliances among different communities:
There's one short story I use about a bisexual / gender queer
teenager (girl), whose gender isn't revealed until the end of the
story. Kids enjoy it, it makes them think about the assumptions
we make as a culture / society and it makes them question if it
matters how someone looks, who they're attracted to or how
they identify. I often shows excerpts from 'Priscilla Queen of the
Desert' when I am teaching feature film - specifically the scene
where the drag queens perform for the aboriginal community in
the outback - and we discuss the marginalisation of certain subcultures
/people and how that is brought together. I know of
others who have used the short story I sourced in a similar way,
as I took the idea of using 'Priscilla' in that way from someone
else (T20).
The scaffolded use of texts and their integration into a unit of
work that addresses the complexity of gender and sexuality is
evident here (see Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2017; Ryan, Patraw,
& Bednat, 2013). For teachers wishing to integrate LGBTQI themes
in the English curriculum, queer and trans theories in conjunction
with critical literacy, which question taken-for granted assumptions
and view texts as embedded within social, political and historical
institutions, can provide useful pedagogical opportunities to
counter heteronormativity and cis-normativity (Malatino, 2015;
Staley & Leonardi, 2016). T20's explicit reference to genderqueer
youth also signals a gender complex and non-binary understanding,
one that speaks to a more universalizing rather than minoritizing
approach to addressing gender and sexual diversity in schools
(Rands, 2009; Sedgwick, 1990). Malatino (2015), for example, argues
against an inclusive educational approach that merely focuses
on the trans individual as object of the teacher's pedagogical gaze
for teaching about gender diversity. Such a focus rejects representations
of transgender subjects as “exceptional beings that expose
the rigidity and coercion implicit in gendering processes” (p. 402).
Rather, Malatino advocates a pedagogical commitment and strategies
involving the deployment of texts that illustrate the ways in
which “trans experiences “resonate with other types of struggles
and complicities with gender normativity” (p. 406). In this respect,
T20's pedagogy of critical literacy to examine “the marginalization
of certain sub-cultures” in the English classroom attests to the
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e4842
hopefulness of broaching discussions about diversity in gender and
sexuality in ways which acknowledge the impact of societal disparities
and intersecting categories, such as language, socioeconomic
status, race, spirituality, age and disability (Blackburn &
Smith, 2010; Burke & Greenfield, 2016).
While T8, T9 and T 20 have progressed towards supporting inclusivity
for LGBTQI affirming individuals through critical literacy,
which can lead all students to broader discussions about antioppressive
education and the role of citizenship in social change
(Burke & Greenfield, 2016; Kumashiro, 2002), these three teachers
represent a small minority of respondents. As commented T33, the
role of the teacher is crucial to acknowledging diversity in gender
and sexuality in the English classroom; in fact, many teachers may
simply not consider these topics when sourcing texts for curricular
planning:
… this [including LGBTQI issues in the secondary curriculum] is
only something that is included IF the specific teacher involves
sources relevant texts. If this doesn't cross his/her/their mind,
then it's entirely possible that there could be no comment or
recognition of LGBTQI kids/people/issues in the English classroom
from one end of the year to the other (T33).
It is also noteworthy to mention that despite T8, T9 and T 20's
implementation of critical literacy activities, to disrupt discriminatory
school practices, particularly in relation to addressing
gender complexity and transgender informed understandings and
erasure (Namaste, 2000), long-term and sustainable planning is
required, with appropriate connections to epistemologies that
reach beyond the tokenistic embodiment of trans individuals (see
for example, Malatino, 2015; Peters, 2006; Wylde, 2015).
6. Discussion
In contexts privileging heterosexist and cisgenderist discourses
through formal and informal curricula, discussing topics pertaining
to diverse gender identities and sexual orientations can be challenging
for many educators (Meyer, Tilland-Stafford, & Airton,
2016; Murray, 2015). For Meyer (2007), “Queer theory offers … a
lens through which educators can transform their praxis so as to
explore and celebrate the tensions and new understandings
created by teaching new ways of seeing the world. ” (p. 15). In fact,
Kumashiro (2002) argued that teaching from a queer and antioppressive
perspective involves challenges, such as accepting that
there will uncomfortableness during which learners must re-think
existing knowledge, pre-suppositions and prejudices about the
definition of normal.
Methodologically, it is important to acknowledge that participants
in this research project are not representative of all English
secondary teachers and responses were gathered at one point in
time, which represents a limitation of surveys (Walter, 2010, pp.
151e182). Below, Fig.1, through a set of concentric circles indicating
that all inner circles are encompassed by the outer circle, represents
a Bakhtinian and Foucauldian infused lens to examine the interrelated
discourses underpinning high school English teachers' reflections
about the extent to which schools are perceived as
welcoming and inclusive of LGBTQI issues. Based on the authors'
epistemological reflections through the various stages of engagement
with the literature and data analysis, Fig. 1 represents an
exploratory framework, rather than a prescriptive tool, which has
been applied outright to the data set. At the heart of the lens, the
inner circle represents a plurality of dialogic utterances through the
concept of heteroglossic language (Bakhtin, 1981). These dialogic
utterances are characterized by on-going struggles between internal
persuasive discourse, allowing teachers to freely recount their
narratives using personal mannerisms, accents and editing, and
authoritative discourse, representing dominant and inflexible language
that often envelops teachers from an external vantage point
(Bakhtin, 1981). Whilst Bakhtin's authoritative discourse points to a
dominant or monoglossic language, Francis (2012) explicated that
on a nuanced level, Bakhtin painted official national languages as
fluid and embedded in dialogue between self and others, via
multiple and interrelated modes, such as speaking, reading,
listening, writing and critical thinking.
Fig. 1's second concentric circle highlights fluidity between time
and space, which Bakhtin (1981 p. 274) described as chronotope or
literally time/space, including the significant, complex and nonlinear
impact of history on heteroglossic language. Interwoven
with space and time, the vision of one speaker, writer or viewer,
shifts and alters heteroglossic language; on an institutional level, in
practical terms, time and space are represented through key indicators,
such as curriculum, resources and pedagogy. Represented
through a third concentric circle, heteroglossic language coalesces
and collides with local, global and state discourses. Finally, the
outer concentric circle illustrates the ‘architectural figure’ of Bentham's
‘Panopticon’ (Foucault,1995), operating in schools through a
disciplinary network of regulatory surveillance and selfsurveillance
which, in this paper we have highlighted, is implicated
in heteronormative and cisnormative systems that inform
teachers pedagogical understandings. Despite the limitation of a
single snap shot in time, the survey allowed for a structured yet
flexible approach to examining a range of sub-topics across respondents
from a wide variety of contexts (Patton, 2002). As we
have illustrated through employing survey data, the panoptic
network of power is evident in practices of regulatory surveillance
that emerge in teachers' reflections on LGBTQI inclusive curriculum
and pedagogy in the space of the English classroom and beyond.
However, through a Bakhtinian lens we have also been conscious of
wanting to illustrate how such surveillance and regulation cannot
be seen simplistically and in an over-determining sense as an
inevitable constraint.
Interwoven with Foucault's regimes of panoptic surveillance,
Bakhtin's (1981) concept of heteroglossia, which views language as
dialogic utterances consistently mediated through the discourses of
decentralization and centralization, also sheds light on the tensions
inherent within and across teachers' perceptions about broaching
matters of diversity in gender and sexuality in schools:
Fig. 1. Teachers' reflections: A Foucauldian and Bakhtinian lens.
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e48 43
Every concrete utterance of a speaking subject serves as a point
where centrifugal as well as centripetal forces are brought to
bear. The processes of centralization and decentralization, of
unification and disunification, intersect in the utterance, the
utterance not only answers the requirements of its own language
as an individualized embodiment of a speech act, but it
answers the requirements of heteroglossia as well
(1981, p. 4).
In this sense, time, space and context intersect with dialogic
utterances (Francis, 2012; Ruffolo, 2009), with results highlighting
many responses characterized by tensions and ambiguity, evoking
the push and pull between teachers' authoritative discourse and
internally persuasive discourse (Bakhtin,1981). For example, whilst
some respondents highlighted the perception that English teachers
could employ literacy resources to provide opportunities for students
to engage with topics surrounding gender and sexuality,
these teachers also suggested that the effectiveness of disrupting
heteronormativity and cis-normativity was mediated by numerous
contextual discourses, such as text selection, attitudes of teachers
and the school community. From this perspective, spoken, written
or visual language is viewed as inseparable from context
(Santaemilia & Bou, 2008). Consequently, teachers are understood
not so much as passive recipients of regimes of hetero and cisnormalization,
but as actively negotiating their pedagogical understandings
and perceptions of and interactions with other
educational stakeholders, such as students, families, co-workers
and the public (Bushnell, 2003, p. 257). This acknowledgment of
the interwoven and sometimes conflicting nature of individual and
communal discourses sheds light on the results of Van Leent (2014)
who described the pedagogy of some Australian teachers for
addressing LGBTQI issues in the classroom as avoidance, uncertainty
or strict segregation of home versus school curriculum.
Thus, teachers' comments reflect the extent to which a number
of secondary schools are providing a safe and welcoming environment,
an English curriculum and literacy resources, which
respect the rights of LGBTQI affirming students. For example, narratives
of teachers' allegiance to their schools with their official
commitment to creating safe spaces reverberated with teacher
comments unveiling regulatory norms governing the terms of
practices of external and internal surveillance, particularly with
regards to the pedagogical space for enacting the English curriculum
through the selection of literacy resources. However, as we
have seen, such iterative discourses enable school authorities and
teachers to maintain an erasure and silencing of LGBTQI representation,
while still investing in a logics of maintaining a
commitment to ensuring school safety for all students. The constant
ebb and flow of disciplinary power thus sheds light on the
apparent disconnection between some teachers' seemingly supportive
discourses, and their unwillingness to ‘go out on a limb’ to
interrupt heterosexist or heteronormative discourses (Clark, 2010).
More recently, Clark (2016) argued that the historical vestige of
institutional discrimination against LGBTQI individuals in Australia
must be examined through current anti-discriminatory legislation
exemptions for religious schools. Although in Australia, diversity
exists across an increasingly significant religiously affiliated sector
(Maddox, 2014) and transgender issues have not been specifically
discussed in religious exemptions, Norden (2016) suggested that
the assumption of heterosexuality and exclusion of diverse sexualities
with which students and staff in Catholic high schools may
self-identify, could breach the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Furthermore, Evans and Ujvari (2009) elucidated that
religious exemptions may send a message that ‘ … discrimination is
relatively minor in comparison to other forms of harm against
which the law protects and from which most religious schools have
no exemptions.’ (p. 42).
Even when teachers deploy a pedagogical repertoire to address
LGBTQI topics, as unveiled in T4's comments about the novel Jarvis
24, if experiences pertaining to diversity in gender and sexual
orientation are portrayed only through minor characters plagued
by family difficulties, it would seem reasonable to assert that the
English curriculum remains dominated by heteronormativity and
cis-normativity, implicitly positioning individuals who do not fit
the norm as abjected victims with the risk of casting them “… as
abnormal and thus inferior …” (Blackburn & Smith, 2010, p. 625). In
stating, “Nobody cares or notices …” T4 appears to suggest that, at
least in one classroom, differences in sexual orientation or gender
will not detract from a student's right to access high quality education
through curriculum (http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu/au).
However, if educational stakeholders adopt dismissive attitudes
towards the depiction of LGBTQI lives, the necessity of interrogating
the status quo in the English curriculum remains decidedly
pressing.
Indeed, the current focus on a national Australian curriculum,
with a companion state document (WASCSA English Scope and
Sequencing), is testimony to the eclipsing of knowledge pertaining
to topics, such as diversity in genders and sexualities, over the
elaboration of traditional literacy skills, such as grammar and
phonemic awareness. Furthermore, following T9's critical deployment
of Destroying Avalon, the school's censorship highlighted the
controversial nature of the novel's subject matter. Ironically, the
novel's plot is driven through the story of a cis-gendered, heterosexual
identifying female high school student, while the one
character perceived to be ‘gay’, is allocated a secondary role, and
ultimately does not identify as ‘gay’ or queer.
7. Concluding remarks
With specific reference to the Western Australian context, this
paper was concerned to investigate how high school English
teachers navigate and negotiate the teaching of gender and sexuality
in their classrooms. Despite the pedagogical repertoire of
some English teachers and the existence of state discourses, such as
the Western Australian School Curriculum and Standards Authority
(2013), stipulating that differences in gender, sexual orientation,
culture, language ethnicity, linguistic background, socioeconomic
status, disability or geography must not detract from students' right
to obtain a quality education, our survey data reinforce the results
of Rhodes (2009) who argued that representations of LGBTQI lives
are generally non-existent in the English classroom and the
Australian curriculum. Our research also suggests that while the
voices of English teachers collided with multiple state discourses,
such as The Education Act of WA (1999) and the grass roots work of
government and volunteer organizations aiming to advocate for the
human rights of the LGBTQI community, homophobia, heteronormativity,
cisnormativity and transphobia continue to impact
negatively on student well-being in schools (see Martino, 2000;
Hillier et al., 1998; Hillier, Turner & Mitchell, 2005; Hillier et al.,
2010; Robinson et al., 2014; Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015). It is also
noteworthy that national discourses such as the Melbourne
Declaration (2008) espouse high quality education, free from
discrimination regarding gender, sexual orientation, language,
culture, pregnancy, ethnicity health, geographic location or economic
background, while appearing to trump sociocultural diversity
over allegiance to centralized academic excellence, via a
high stakes National Assessment Program.
Rather than celebrating human strengths and differences, a high
W.M. Cumming-Potvin, W. Martino / Teaching and Teacher Education 74 (2018) 35e4844
stakes' assessment discourse can normalize the enactment of literacy
through performance, thereby objectifying teachers and
students in the ways they contribute to the global economy (Hynds,
2014). Reinforcing the challenges of progressing towards equality
for people of diverse genders and sexualities in the Western World
(Ferfolja, 2015; McGregor, 2008; Nash & Browne, 2015; Rayside,
2008), such contradictions speak to the push and pull of heteroglossic
language, which falls, retracts, rebounds, and resonates
locally, nationally and globally (Bakhtin, 1981). Meshing the lenses
of Bakhtin (1981) and Foucault (1995) through concepts such as
heteroglossia and surveillance, this WA study reveals the uneven
and dynamic nature of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1995), and
how local, state, national and global networks of governance
impact on the provision of LGBTQI curriculum, pedagogy and
resources.
Gathered under Western Australian neo-liberal governance, our
survey data illustrate how teachers grappled with, at the prospect
of introducing LGBTQI topics into the curriculum, and reveal that
their voices were imbued with a multiplicity of tensions, contradictions
and silences, but also possibilities (Bakhtin, 1981). As such,
in support of the human rights of LGBTQI self-identifying students
and their families, the Bakhtinian-Foucauldian lens presented in
Fig. 1 allows for an emergent re-conceptualization of the epistemological
basis for generating pedagogical insights and understandings
about gender and sexual diversity in schools. Applied
to future critical inquiry, we view the utility of this framework as
exploring heuristic insights into the deployment of theory and
understanding of the ‘dispositif’ (Bailey, 2013), with implications
for making sense of the constraints and possibilities that govern
how teachers think about their pedagogical engagement with
gender and sexual diversity in schools. Exemplified through our
engagement with the survey data, we see our research as providing
a window onto a particular enactment of a dispositif, understood as
a historically contingent and evolving network of “discursive and
non-discursive [institutional, administrative and pedagogical] elements”
(Bailey, 2013, p. 3). Ideally, to unravel the complex landscape
of policy and education reform as it relates to how
heteronormative and cisnormative governance impacts English
teachers, and how they are mobilizing against it (Authors, under
review), this concept of a ‘dispositif’ as a heuristic device (Bailey, p.
3) has the capacity to guide empirical investigations across a range
of educational contexts. This exploratory framework considers
shifting networked sites of administrative governance and elements
such as time, space and diverse language modes, including
digital texts and media.
Under current global political trends dominated by Donald
Trump's discourse of American nationalism and fear of difference,
the panopticon, as illustrated in Fig. 1, takes on a pivotal role
through disciplinary practices of surveillance, judgments, expectations
and demands flowing from and to wider discourses of
accountability (Ball, 2000). Against this backdrop of neo-liberalism
featuring an English curriculum that implicitly discourages teachers
from initiating conversations regarding diverse genders and
sexualities (Sauntson, 2013), our fusion of Bakhtinian and Foucauldian
lenses reveals how authority, tensions and slippage
interweave in teacher discourses and can be contextualized locally,
nationally or globally through power and surveillance. These concepts
are central to generating insights into how English teachers
make sense of their pedagogical commitments to addressing
gender and sexuality in the classroom.
Undoubtedly, English teachers and their enactment of the
formal and informal curriculum are significant in refining resistance
against a mode of governance which erases LGBTQI affirming
individuals or relegates them to an abjected status as victim or
other (Foucault, 1995; Garcia & Slesaransky-Poe, 2010; Rasmussen,
2006; Taylor et al., 2011). Hence, anti-oppressive education as well
as queer and trans-informed scholarship are salient for critical
changes in the English curriculum and teacher education. To this
effect, in selecting meritorious LGBTQI literature that enables the
disruption of curriculum through critical literacy and queer theory
(and we would add Trans theory), Logan et al. (2014) proposed
reflective questions such as: “What are the disciplinary and interdisciplinary
connections with the text? Which salient content is
conveyed by reading this text? In what way would an adolescent
read this text?” (p. 32) Encouraging pre-service teachers to engage
with challenging conversations about religion, gender identity and
sexuality, the work of Killelea McEntarfer (2016, p. 117) emphasized
the usefulness of Bakhtin's (1986) dialogic approach to enable
“productive discussions across difference”, allowing participants to
better understand the embodiment of their own narratives and
those of their peers.
Notwithstanding this productive curricular work, to support
equality for all educational stakeholders, particularly LGBTQI
affirming students, our Bakhtinian and Foucauldian analytic
framework needs to be considered within a larger body of applied
work in the fields of gender, queer, trans and feminist studies.
Despite the significant role of teachers in countering heteronormativity,
cisnormativity, transphobia and homophobia in
schools, our results reinforce the conclusions of Bedord (2009) and
Meyer et al. (2016), suggesting that for equality of LGBTQI affirming
students, sustainable systemic change requires long-term collaboration
with multiple stakeholders including parents/carers, principals,
teacher educators, government and community
representatives, as well as an intersectional approach to gender and
sexuality, which considers race, ethnicity, class, religion, etc. Our
research and its grounding in queer and trans-affirming epistemologies
supports such a holistic community project, and sees an
urgent need for policy reform encapsulating the multiplicity of
diverse elements, such as discourses, ontology, history and practices
that circulate and re-circulate in local and global education
systems (Bailey, 2013).
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