LGBTQ Kids, School Safety, and Missing the Big Picture

Payne, E. & Smith, M. (2013). LGBTQ Kids, School Safety, and Missing the Big Picture: How the Dominant Bullying Discourse Prevents School Professionals from Thinking about Systemic Marginalization or . . . Why We Need to Rethink LGBTQ Bullying. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 1: 1-36. doi:10.14321/qed.0001

This is a paper that we have found has hugely influenced our thinking around LGBTQ+ matters in schools. This paper focuses on discourses around bullying in US schools and offers an interesting argument that such discourses often focus on LGBTQ+ students as victims of individuals, who use language to express homophobic attitudes. As a consequence school interventions to tackle homophobia are aimed at dealing with these individuals and addressing their negative attitudes. Clearly, dealing with homophobia at this level is important, but as Payne and Smith argue, this focus ignores the underpinning heteronormative and cisgendered norms that shape attitudes in institutions like schools. Drawing a distinction between school climate and school culture, where the focus on climate tends to absolve schools of a role in creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ youngster, Payne and Smith argue that how we understand bullying needs to be reconceptualised as gender policing, and that the socio-cultural dynamic around heterosexual and cisgendered expectations need to be better understood. Only by recognising the role schools play in creating and sustaining particular culture can steps be taken to support cultural change.