This article presents an interview with James Howe, author of "The Misfits" and "Totally Joe". In this interview, Howe discusses tolerance, diversity and the parallels between his own life and his literature. Howe's four books in addition to "The Misfits" and "Totally Joe" and his list of recommended books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,…

This article describes a student affairs practitioner's experience with co-instructing a course entitled, "Queer(y)ing Religion and Spirituality". The ways practitioners can facilitate difficult dialogues with students about the intersection of spirituality and GLBT issues are explored.

How do students who do not identify as gay interrupt the institutionalized silence pervading the issue of heterosexism in public schools? Drawing on data from practitioner research conducted with high school students, I illustrate one such journey where students with situated privilege chose to challenge heterosexism. Analysis of field notes,…

U.S. Department of Education Secretary Spellings admonished PBS for having produced an episode of "Postcards from Buster" because it included children with lesbian parents. A college professor describes how this incident and children's literature was a learning opportunity for future teachers.

In this article, the author offers guidelines to teachers on shaping pedagogy and classrooms in ways that include and value the experiences and learning of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. In order for teachers to create a context in which gender trouble can happen without violent consequences, they need to…

This article offers a number of ideas that teachers and administrators can implement in order to help make educational settings more welcoming for parents who are LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual or transgender). However, the real work is beyond that of putting up posters or dolls in the dollhouse or changing the words to fingerplays to reflect the…

Sexual minority youth commonly face struggles in adapting to unwelcoming or threatening school climates. In one Midwestern city, several schools receive services from Out For Equity (OFE), a flagship program supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and allied (LGBTQA) youth. Participating schools indicated consistent…

A group of science students self-identifying as gay or queer have only talked of their sexuality and gender feelings, and their experiences within higher education, on the completion of their studies. The reasons for their alienation from, and further marginalisation by the queer discourse are discussed. These include the stereotyping of gay…

This paper explores how some schooling cultures in New South Wales (hereafter NSW), Australia, police and silence non-heterosexuality through a number of institutional processes which enable homophobia and heterosexism to flourish, while normalizing and constituting heterosexuality as the dominant and only valid sexuality. The discussion shows…

The author, formerly a co-leader of Nexus, a program that focused on the interconnectedness of different types of oppression, relates her personal experience on forming "first impressions." Participation in this program was open to students interested in the issues of diversity and was strictly voluntary and cocurricular. The program was bringing…

The "Dowa" (Human Rights) education program has become an effective method of changing concept and situations of "Burakumin," a group of people that has been discriminated against in Japan. One educational strategy was to speak out their personal stories, which has become a trigger to some sexual minority teachers to come out,…

Christian fundamentalist religious beliefs, expressed by social work students, present a challenge to the social work educator. In this paper we explore the tensions between Fundamentalism, diverse sexual orientation and gender expression and social work pedagogy. Particularly, we focus on how an anti-oppressive pedagogical approach, while…

This study proposes an empirically based model with a strong theoretical foundation in higher education and social psychology to better understand how the college experience influences the development of attitudes of acceptance towards lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons. Our results demonstrated that students develop more accepting attitudes…

This article describes the Spare Tyre Theatre Company, which has been creating theatre about gay issues including homophobia since the mid-nineties. They have worked with a variety of groups and over the years have aimed their projects at a younger and younger age group. Shows are accompanied by workshops run by the actors, and audiences are…

This article explores a theory of narrative that can account for its underlying structures and can critique a paradox of consciousness-raising: that the more that narratives are privileged in teacher education, the less we know about how this narrative affects what will come to be said about teacher education's reliance upon stories of experience…