Bursting the ‘childhood bubble’: reframing discourses of LGBTQ+ teachers and their students

Abstract

LGBTQ+ teachers have been noted to struggle with conflicting professional and personal subjectivities within schools, which are sites of (re)production of heteronormativity. This clash relies upon positioning LGBTQ+ as an adult activity in opposition to discourses of childhood, which are framed around protection and innocence. This research, however, took place at a time of potential change, with aspects of LGBTQ+ inclusion being present within UK schools to varying degrees. In 2020, 50 UK LGBTQ+ teachers engaged in individual semi-structured interviews. Thematic Foucauldian analysis was applied to the data to examine both the discourses produced by the teachers and the subjectivities that were navigated. Findings suggest that many teachers are able to disrupt the binaries of professional/personal and a ‘new’ teacher subjectivity emerges, that acknowledges their LGBTQ+ status. This is framed around neoliberal traits of honesty and authenticity. In relation, the binary distinction between student and teacher is navigated, and childhood is no longer discursively constructed by the teachers as innocent; instead, students are framed around their agency and social awareness. However, there is evidence that protectionist discourses of the child, and professional discourses of the teacher, are also being used to prevent LGBTQ+ inclusion, and restrict LGBTQ+ teachers.

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