This exploration of effective practices to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and gender-diverse students in elementary, middle, and high school contexts focuses on curriculum, pedagogy, and school environment. Narratives and artwork from the field are framed by sociocultural and critical theory as well as research-based elaboration on the issues discussed. Applications of antidiscrimination law and policy, as well as learning skills like creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking help teachers tackle some of the most significant educational challenges of our time. The stories of real-world practices offer encouragement for building inclusive environments and enhancing social-emotional relationships among youth, families, and schools. Gender Diversity and LGBTQ Inclusion in K-12 Schools provides a helpful roadmap for educators hoping to create safe and empowering spaces for LGBTQ and gender-diverse students and families.

This book reviews interventions and strategies to support LGBTQ students in K-12 schools. Contributors provide practical tips for creating a safe school environment with insights drawn from new research, firsthand experience in schools, clinical professional guidelines, the law, and legal precedent from the civil rights struggle. Topics include staff training, advocacy, systems-level change, and flipping the narrative on anti-bullying to creating a positive and supportive school climate for all students.

A vital inquiry into trans issues in education, this compelling work argues for the design of education research, policies, and environments that honor all gender experiences and identities. Edited by two prominent figures in trans studies, Mario I. Suárez and Melinda M. Mangin, Trans Studies in K–12 Education brings together scholars and professionals representing a range of academic traditions, research methodologies, and career backgrounds to explore why and how schools should affirm gender diversity and challenge gender-based inequities. The collection offers a comprehensive examination of how gender is manifested in the educational context. Gathering a wealth of evidence, the book’s contributors expose the prevailing norm of gendered environments, which are entrenched in the very design and execution of educational research. The collection also lays out a critical overview of US laws and policies related to gender equity, gender identity, and gender expression and how these frameworks impact educational environments. These findings draw attention to deficit-oriented, pathologizing ideologies that surround nonconforming gender identities and the detrimental, often traumatizing effects on transgender students and educators. Throughout, the contributors recommend methods for establishing gender-affirming research, policy, and practice. They outline the sociopolitical and legal pathways that trans and nonbinary students and school employees may use to secure education and workplace rights. They discuss the positive gains made by professional development for teachers, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and community programs that successfully support transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Ultimately, the volume highlights the promise of creating K–12 education spaces that are liberating rather than constraining.

Past research on gender and LGBTQ issues in K-12 and teacher education has primarily focused on identifying ways of fostering inclusive and affirmative school communities for non-cis and/or queer students and enabling learning contexts to promote academic learning. Much of this work has attended to theorizing pedagogies and curricula conducive towards such an aim. Yet, despite legal advances for gender equity and LGBTQ rights in diverse global contexts and the increased visibility of LGBTQ issues in mainstream media, non-cis and queer individuals (especially those of color) continue to experience violence, face housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and the denial of service in public businesses. In light of the numerous growing conservative movements to not only roll back legal advances for LGBTQ individuals, but to also promote a culture of homophobia and transphobia, scholars must attend to the myriad ways in which members of the school community can counter such efforts, and how the multiple facets of the educative experience can be conceptualized beyond a paradigm that continues to marginalize gender diverse and LGBTQ individuals. This volume, Exploring Gender and LGBTQ Issues in K12 and Teacher Education: A Rainbow Assemblage, edited by Adrian D. Martin and Kathryn J. Strom, provides examples of empirical inquiries and theorizations that explore how schools can function as more than safe academic environments for gender diverse and LGBTQ students. The contributing authors attend to classrooms and educative contexts as spaces that promote the affirmative inclusion of not only LGBTQ students, but other education stakeholders as well with the aim to dismantle homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and other hate-based ideologies. The volume serves as an insightful and useful resource for educators, teacher educators, and education researchers engaged in inquiry and pedagogy towards systems of schooling unencumbered by heteronormativity other hate-based ideologies with implications for future professional practice.

Safe Is Not Enough illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum; fostering a whole-school climate that is supportive of LGBTQ students; providing adults who can act as mentors and role models; and initiating effective family and community outreach programs. While progress on LGBTQ issues in schools remains slow, in many parts of the country schools have begun making strides toward becoming safer, more welcoming places for LGBTQ students. Schools typically achieve this by revising antibullying policies and establishing GSAs (gay-straight student alliances). But it takes more than a deficit-based approach for schools to become places where LGBTQ students can fulfill their potential. In Safe Is Not Enough, Michael Sadowski highlights how educators can make their schools more supportive of LGBTQ students’ positive development and academic success.

Stepping Up! offers inspiring suggestions for ways teachers and teacher educators can stand up and speak out for students to create welcoming classroom climates for LGBTQ and gender diverse youth. Building from ten years of collaborative longitudinal inquiry, including interviews with parents, students, teachers, and administrators, the authors share stories from different perspectives to support teachers with concrete examples of advocacy. The authors show teachers how to ‘step up’ by working with students, through and beyond curriculum, and by working with families and administrators to improve school culture for LGBTQ and gender diverse students. Additionally, they explore the potential constraints involved in such social justice work, and share strategies and resources for transforming schools to be more queer-friendly.

Educators in the K-12 school environment work diligently to help at-risk students find success in the classroom. One particular group of at-risk students is the LGBTQ+ population. K-12 students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer often fear the repercussions of disclosing this information in the classroom environment. Homophobia from fellow students, faculty, and/or administrators can be in the form of bullying, lack of acknowledgement of identity, absence in curriculum, etc. There is a strong need for this group of students to be included in the landscape of curriculum design and policymaking. Incorporating LGBTQ+ Identities in K-12 Curriculum and Policy is a critical research publication that provides comprehensive research on inclusive curriculum design and education policy that specifically impacts LGBTQ+ students. Featuring an array of topics such as gender diversity, mental health services, and preservice teachers, this book is essential for teachers, counsellors, school psychologists, therapists, curriculum developers, instructional designers, principals, school boards, academicians, researchers, administrators, policymakers, and students.