ERIC Number: EJ1267969
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1381-2890
EISSN: N/A
Parental Attitudes to the Australian Anti-Bullying "Safe Schools" Program: A Critical Discourse Analysis
Shevlin, Alicia; Gill, Peter Richard
Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, v23 n4 p891-915 Sep 2020
LGBTIQ children and adolescents experience disproportionate levels of bullying. "Safe Schools," an Australian anti-bullying program, has recently been a site of public debate, with parents and their imagined concerns being central to the debate. This study investigated how parents construct gender, sexuality, and bullying, in relation to "Safe Schools." Utilising Critical Discourse Analysis, we analysed 11 parent interviews and identified four broad discursive themes: heterosexual anxiety, transhysteria, the contested ecology of bullying, and resistance. Many parents feared that children will be harmed mentally and sexually by exposure to the program, and that bullying is an isolated phenomenon. These attitudes serve a social function of maintaining heterosexual and cisgender hegemony, and a psychic function of disavowing the fluid nature of subjectivity. There was also evidence of resistance to these attitudes, with many contending that "Safe Schools" is necessary, due to bullying being viewed as a social phenomenon informed by homophobia and transphobia. Hostility towards transgender people was notable amongst parents. The discourses identified in this research highlight the strength of current anxieties around children and sexual subjectivity and how they function to undermine the lives of LGBTIQ people, including children who would benefit most from a meaningful implementation of "Safe Schools."
Descriptors: Parent Attitudes, Discourse Analysis, Bullying, LGBTQ People, School Safety, Prevention, Program Descriptions, Sexuality, Gender Differences, Anxiety, Mental Health, Social Attitudes, Social Bias, Homosexuality, Fear, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A