Although the adoption rate among same-sex couples has been increasing, limited research has focused on factors influencing decision making related to placing children with such couples, particularly from the standpoint of birth mothers. Additionally, there is a gap in the literature regarding how biases may influence birth mothers' decision to…

There have been few attempts to capture the experiences of lesbian-parented families in Australian early childhood settings. This study explored the experiences of such families since the implementation of the first national Early Years Learning Framework in 2009 by way of an online survey and follow-up interviews that were analyzed taking a queer…

In this article, we present a study describing the factors, which favor and hinder school intervention in family diversity. In a case study-based qualitative approach, we examined a public ECE (Early Childhood Education) and primary school in the province of Huelva (Spain) with homoparental families forming part of the educational community. The…

Over the past few decades, a growing number of same-sex parents have joined school communities nationwide as their children reached school age (Byard, Kosciw, & Bartkiewicz, 2013). The already large and growing population of LGBQT parent-headed families necessitates the need for educators to examine the ways anti-LGBQT bias and behavior…

Lesbian parents shared their experiences of using Early Childhood settings in Australia. Aspects discussed included disclosure decisions, the usefulness of children's books featuring same sex parented families, and experiences related to their family composition. Via an online survey and two follow up interviews, these parents explained how…

Forty Italian gay father families formed by surrogacy were compared with 40 Italian lesbian mother families formed by donor insemination, all with a child aged 3 to 9 years. Standardized interview, observational, and questionnaire measures of parenting quality, parent-child relationships, stigmatization, and children's adjustment were administered…

Conducting a multimodal discourse analysis of 40 television advertisements featuring same-sex families across 10 countries between 2005 and 2015, this article examines the discourses of childhood that emerge within the advertisements. It argues that same-sex parented children are dominantly framed within mainstream advertising in ways that are…

This paper deals with LGBTIQ parenting from a critical pedagogical perspective. We start with the "parenthood-parenting" dichotomy that served as a foundation for developing an analytical framework in which we have analysed other dichotomies, apart from the mentioned one, whose interdependency creates multiple and at the same time…

This paper is based on research that is concerned to provide insight into the pedagogical potential for interrupting heteronormativity and addressing the politics of gender expression/embodiment in the elementary school classroom. It is informed by an engagement with queer and trans theoretical literature that raises questions about restrictive…

From 2006 to 2008 UK-based primary school teachers in the "No Outsiders" project explored possibilities for addressing sexualities equality in their classrooms. What all teachers had in common was a resource pack that included 27 children's books exploring themes of gender and sexuality diversity either directly or indirectly (i.e. by…

Before Michelle Hatchell and her partner, Liz, sent their child, Mimi, to school for the first time, the family sat down and created a script. "What can you say," Hatchell prompted, "if someone asks if you have two moms?" They sent Mimi's teacher picture books depicting families with two mothers. And they met with the principal, requesting Mimi be…

In response to Davies and Robinson's article looking at how queer families are positioned and position themselves in relation to neoliberalism, this article brings the child to the centre of the debate to examine how reading the child subject in terms of discourses of innocence and protection might work to maintain the hegemony of the…

Effective social justice movements, including those at the level of children's literature, address the ways different forms of oppression intersect and affect the experiences of diverse queer identities. Children's literature can help combat heteronormative discourse by instilling at a young age the inherent value of all people.…

Little is known about how youth with LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) parents experience various forms of sexual stigma (i.e., homophobia and heterosexism). Previous studies have focused primarily on frequency of teasing and harassment; therefore, much less is known about how indirect and institutional types of sexual stigma play out in the lives…

In this paper, we investigate primary school teachers' reflections on addressing the topic of same-sex families and relationships in their classrooms. Informed by queer theoretical and Foucauldian analytic approaches, we examine teachers' potential use of texts, such as picture storybooks, which introduce representations of same-sex relationships…