Annotated Bibliography

Sexuality in Schools: Creating a safe environment.

Purpose:
With society ever changing and new and different ideologies coming to the forefront of our
cultural awareness the possibility for groups to be marginalized due to their differences with
what is considered to be the dominant culture increases. The LGBTQ community is one of the
cultural communities facing backlash from the dominant culture presently. The discriminations
are not exclusive to bullying practiced by individuals it is also present in our institutions. Schools
are on the forefront of the battle lines of acceptance vs ostracizing. The professionals within the
schools have the ability to help shape the future cultural views. School Psychologists are
uniquely positioned to help as they see both physical and emotional effects of discrimination and
have to work within the policies that aid the institutional discrimination. This annotated
bibliography describes current literature and gives insight to the many avenues in need of
attention in the educational system to ensure a safe environment for everyone.
Methodology:
Literature published by 2010 or later was considered for this review in an attempt to keep the
findings applicable to current issues. The review looks at how sexual identity and gender
orientation are taught via curriculum, how educators view the LGBTQ community and how the
LGBTQ community exisit within the educational system.
Findings:
The results overwhelmingly show that there is a large discrepancy between the way heteronormed students and homo-normed student are treated by the educational system. This is a
pervasive theme throughout all aspects the educational system, from the policy that guides
curriculum right down to the way new teachers and school professionals are taught.
Current policy appears to allow for the teaching of sexual identity but in practice the messages
sent in the classrooms adhere strictly to a heteronormative ideology. There are many factors that
influence this including cultural norms, religious ideology and educator apprehension of stepping
out of line and being singled out. It can be gleaned from the literature that most administrations
leave the curriculum up to the sexual education teacher and because of this the teachers feel they
dont have the support of the administration to install what is considered atypical curriculum.
Educators also have to deal with their own personal feelings and emotions. Some literature
provides evidence that fear may be a motivating factor to not address issues associated with the
LGBTQ community. These fears can be derived from an individual fear of the different, fear of
confrontation with the community within they work and in some cases fear of personal and
family safety. One study even showed that teachers found it easier to teach their students about
LGBTQ acceptance than confront a coworker about their homophobic views.
Finally, the literature shows that when LGBTQ individuals do seek help from counselling
professionals they are met by a work force that is unprepared to successfully help them. This

unpreparedness is shown to come from the education that the counsellors have received and seek
out as career development. This is very striking and disconcerting. As a profession that is very
forward thinking and operates with the best for others in the forefront as a mandate the fact that
the DSM still has the remnants of a clinical diagnosis for homosexuality in its current edition is
disturbing.
The current state of the literature is presented to remind us that while progress is being made in
cultural realms the wheels of institutional change are much slower to move toward progress.
Future School Psychologists should be aware of the challenges facing all students under their
care, especially those who have apparent institutional barriers in the way of their sucesss.
Biegel, S. (2010). The Right to be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Americas
Public Schools. University of Minnesota Press.
This is a review of a book titled The Right to be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in
Americas Public Schools written by Stuart Biegel. This work provides a legal history of the
protections provided by the federal government in regards to an individuals sexual orientation.
LGBT students were once seen as the disruptive problem in educational settings, judges have
begun to understand that bullying and administrative disregard are the intolerable behaviors that
must be changed. As well as the legal view it delves into the social ramifications of educators
supporting the LGBTQ community and the backlash they receive from the dominant culture.
Gal, N., Shifman, L., and Kampf, Z. (2015) It gets better: Internet memes and the creation of
collective identity. New Media and Society. DOI: 10.1177/1461444814568784
This article looks at how technology impacts the ability of minority groups to express their
norms in virtual public spaces. The target technology was internet memes, a medium typically
related to comedic expressions of stereotypes. Memes tend to reflect the sociodemographic
background of their creators, typically White, privileged young men. The LGBTQ identity is
distinct because it differentiates individuals from their social and family groups, as well as from
the expected life narrative to which they were socialized This studys authors identified and
explored a modern means of communication, specifically the It gets better campaign on
YouTube. This internet campaign was created as a persuasive tool in an attempt to reduce
LGBTQ teen suicide. The results indicate that this use of technology allowed the most vulnerable
populations to express their voice in the same fashion as the dominant culture and there is some
evidence for it having an insulating effect.
Glibert, J. (2014) Sexuality in School: The Limits of Education. University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, MN. 2014. ISBN: 978-1-4529-4222-3.
The book calls upon the institution of education to reshape and expand long-held views of sex
and sexuality and to acknowledge the central position of sexuality, as well as the role of family
and family messages in the maturation of childrens sexuality. Case examples from the LGBTQ
community remind us that sex and sexuality are not merely theoretical concepts but are palpable
in daily struggles for all youth as they mature, especially for youth whose sexual feelings and

expressions are categorized as atypical. The author suggests that for curriculum to be more
inclusive of differences, those who create the curriculum must reect, write, and act from a more
honest and accepting view of their own sexuality, and recognize that in creating hospitality in
education. The author also includes an in depth look at 5 steps they believe can help institute a
curriculum inclusive of everyone

Ollis, D. (2010) I havent changed bigots but . . . : reflections on the impact of teacher
professional learning in sexuality education. Sex Education. 10 (2). 217-230
This article looks at how training of educators to be competent in the ability to talk about
sexually diverse issues in an educational setting can be insulating in terms of preventing LGBTQ
teen suicide. Providing teachers with the professional learning to move towards more inclusive
and afrming attitudes to homosexuality is more than giving teachers a set of activities to take
back to their classrooms. The data showed that the professional learning was overall successful
in raising the teachers awareness of the need to include sexual diversity issues in an inclusive
and afrming way. Many returned to their schools, implemented activities in their health
education classrooms and tackled student homophobia. Interesting to note is that the training
while beneficial did not instill the confidence to within the educators to address the homophobic
tendencies of their colleagues. The authors of this article are from Australia and that should be
taken into account when interpreting these results.
Payne, E., & Smith, M. (2014) Journal of Homosexuality. 61. 399-418. DOI:
10.1080/00918369.2013.842430
This article looks at the attitudes and emotions of educators when they have a known LGBTQ
individual in their classroom. This article took a specific look at trans individuals. It is the
position of the authors that fear shapes educators decisions around supporting a transgender
student and shuts down opportunities for introducing the possibility of gender uidity or
nonconformity to childrens worldview. It is important to consider how cultivation of fear of
those who are different through curricula, textbooks, and everyday school practices
organizes the social and bodily space in a pedagogic eld by creating powerful affective borders.
Teachers who choose to mention or afrm LGBTQ people in a positive context are at risk for
having their own character and intentions questioned by the dominant culture. Also, teachers in
certain geographical locations also fear that being seen as LGBT or Ally could put them at risk
for personal violence and therefore often choose to keep any supportive work they do invisible.
Future school professionals have few opportunities in their training programs to reect on the
likelihood that at some point, they will be working with LGBTQ or gender nonconforming
children or parents.

Preston, M, J. (2016) Theyre just not mature right now: teachers complicated perceptions
of gender and anti-queer bullying. Sex Education. 16 (1) 22-34.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1019665

This article looks at how educators view anti queer bullying in their classrooms and school
setting. Teachers at the nexus of a complex system of power wherein they reinforce systems that
work to stigmatize non-normative identities and behaviors and potentially challenge normative
conceptualizations of gender and sexuality. Exploring how sexuality education teachers
conceptualize and respond to LGBTQ students and bullying is useful because sexuality and
gender are so often conflated in Western culture. Teachers dismissed the bullying they did
witness as both immature and as baseless because they viewed victims as either aunting it
and therefore deserving of bullying, or as straight and therefore viewed bullying as having no
signicant impact on the victim. This double-blindness creates a void wherein teachers do not
acknowledge the signicance of anti-queer bullying for all students as a system of subordination
and control, and which works to reinforce notions that students who are LGBTQ identied are
unsympathetic victims. The authors suggest reframing bullying to incorporate an understanding
of the ways in which school culture encompasses systemic modes of power and oppression,
particularly gendered hierarchies, that anti-queer bullying articulates and reproduces.

Rutherford, K., McIntyre, J., Daley A., and Ross, L. (2012) Medical Education. 46, 903-913.
doi:10.1111/j.1365-2923.2012.04272.x
This article looks at the discriminant ways that the mental health needs of the LGBTQ
community are not being met. Studies have consistently demonstrated that sexual and gender
minority people, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals,
experience poorer mental health outcomes compared with heterosexual and cisgender (non-trans)
people, despite high rates of utilization. Until 1973, the diagnosis of homosexuality was included
in the APAs Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Notably, gender
identity disorder continues to be listed as a psychiatric diagnosis in the current edition of the
DSM. Research published over the past two decades, however, indicates that explicit teaching on
LGBT health is either not occurring or, at least, is not achieving widespread curricular
integration at either the undergraduate or postgraduate level of medical training. With this in
mind it is unacceptable that we continue to educate counsellors in a manner that overlooks a
large portion of the individuals who seek professional services. The goal is not to make everyone
an expert in the eld of LGBT mental health, but, rather, to ensure that all providers have a basic
understanding of the key issues facing these populations in order to ensure that LGBT
individuals receive sensitive, respectful and effective care within mainstream mental health
services.
Schmidt, S., Wandersman, A and Hills K. (2015) Evidence-Based Sexuality Education
Programs in Schools: Do They Align with the National Sexuality Education

Standards?
American Journal of Sexuality Education. 10. 177-195 DOI:
10.1080/15546128.2015.1025937
This article looks at how the sexual education practices in the U.S. are aligning with the
standards developed in 2012. The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United
States (SIECUS) denes sexuality education as the lifelong process of acquiring information
about sexual behavior, and of forming attitudes, beliefs, and values about identity, relationships,
and intimacy. This authors review found that sexual identity was seldom discussed. Just one
program included some information related to gender roles and stereotypes. No programs
discussed homosexuality or other topics specically geared toward sexual minority students.
Taken together, results from the review of program components suggest that evidence-based
sexuality education programs are overwhelmingly taking a risk prevention approach, primarily
endeavoring to delay sexual activity among teenagers. It appears that the U.S. is viewing sexual
education as a way to instill the values of the dominant culture and in a way being blind to the
facts that show teens are exploring their sexuality. The author suggests that rather than
considering sexuality education as primarily a vehicle for a debate about the morality and
appropriateness of teenage sexual behavior, sexuality education should focus on giving students
the information they need to clarify their own attitudes and values about sexuality, and make
healthy decisions.