Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative, life history study was to explore the cumulation of life and lived work experience and perceptions of gay male K-12 teachers in Southern California, and how school leadership has affected that journey. Theoretical Framework. Queer theory was the theoretical framework used in this story. The theory studies…

Texts such as curriculum and policy documents work in complex ways to coordinate teachers' work and approaches to diverse genders and sexualities. Although it might be assumed that official, mandated curricula determine teachers' curriculum choices, little is known about the extent of textual influences on how teachers represent genders and…

School climate describes the quality of the school environment. School climate is a construct that refers to the perceived structural, interpersonal, and learning aspects of a school; a positive school climate is associated with school success and academic achievement (Hoy & Hannum, 1997), prosocial development (Koth et al., 2008), and…

While educators, curriculum authors and policy makers alike are influenced by assumptions about parents' dis/approval of gender and sexuality diversity, both generally, as well as specifically in relation to this topic's appropriateness for K-12 classrooms, little empirical data is available to support these assumptions. What data does exist…

Introduction: The logical operator of disjunction has two possibilities, inclusive and exclusive, although the latter is more deeply rooted in our thinking. The present study seeks to analyze whether teaching both types of logical disjunction encourages more inclusive attitudes toward hypothetical social situations that appear as disjunctions.…

This qualitative study examines elementary teachers' strategies for supporting trans and/or gender-expansive elementary students. The findings come from observations and interviews with a purposive sample of 31 teachers from five elementary schools with principals whom parents characterized as supporting their transgender and/or gender-expansive…

One of the most common responses from pre- and in-service teachers related to addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) topics in elementary school is a concern about parents' responses. This article explores these concerns by examining two elementary school teachers' interactions with parents in relation to their…

A post-hoc study was conducted to ascertain the effect of comprehensive sex education on of 7th graders' knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes regarding sexual health and sexual identities in a small city school district in the Midwest USA. All five middle schools in the district participated, three of which used a comprehensive curriculum and two…

The present study investigates the role of perceived reason for being bullied on the outcomes of bullying. Using a sample of bullied youth from the 2017 administration of the PNA survey (n = 3,373), the present study tested the moderating effect of perceived reason for bullying on the relation between type of bullying experienced and depressive…

Working to combat, speak back to, and shift discourses concerning issues of genders, sexuality/ies, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and 2-spirit (LGBTQ2) identities in school classrooms and curriculum, this article highlights the capacity in building more inclusive elementary classroom spaces through tinkering in teacher education.…

This article examines the complex, deeply personal processes that elementary educators engage as they learn to become inclusive practitioners of gender and sexual diversity (GSD). We complicate literature that highlights structural barriers and negative influences such as lack of administrative support and homophobic attitudes as key factors that…

How do children experience gender? What are the roles of schools, adults and allies in supporting gender inclusion in a world of gendered categories? Despite a growing public discourse on gender and shifts toward fluid understandings of gender in US popular culture and educational institutions, the voices of transgender and gender expansive…

Over the past fifty years, children's picture books have made great strides toward literary equity by including more perspectives from and stories about marginalized groups, such as those whose gender identities do not conform to heteronormative standards. While texts featuring gender-variant male characters engage in topics that are far too often…

This article presents the results of a thorough content analysis of 28 LGBTQ award-winning picturebooks. As a queer teacher educator working with pre-service elementary teachers, I wanted to find out how the queer picturebooks available for use in my students' classrooms were any good at helping them and their future students understand that…

Given the great influence gender identity issues have in educational settings, it is critical to understand how students, especially in the K-12 context, are affected and how this contributes to their academic success. This article deals with the potential that lies in teaching topics of gender identity in the additional language classroom.…