Diversities In Schools

Over the last decade, the issues around sexual diversities in the school community have increased. Although there has been raised awareness around the topic, pre-service teachers and current school educators continue to be inactive in their approaches to addressing sexual diversities in the classroom and broader school population. This shows that educators and pre-service teachers are not being provided with enough support and knowledge in this controversial area and therefore, it is critical to implement strategies that will help encourage and support teachers in addressing this topic to young people in the school environment. Given the importance of creating equality for all students, addressing the issues around sexual diversities in
Ferfolja (2013) argues that it is from observing a teachers involvement, or lack of action, in the classroom that sexual diversities and its boundaries can be explored. She contends that many educators are reluctant to address or acknowledge the issues of sexual diversities in the classroom, for varying reasons (Ferfolja, 2013). This position is based on previous literature and research studies on the topic in question. Thein et al., (2013) confirm this argument, as they discuss the importance of addressing sexualities. However, they demonstrate how teachers are reluctant to employ this topic in a classroom situation. For example, in the study 73% of primary school teachers took a negative approach to teaching issues of sexuality as they believed it would not be appropriate or it was not a part of their job (Thein et al., 2013). In contrast, Boas (2012) demonstrates that the teachers must take a positive approach to sexual diversity issues, as it is not just something that happens, or is learnt and constructed at home. She also argues that sexuality is not a topic reserved only for adults, and further explains how rational decisions need to be made in the classroom
A recurrent theme relates to student awareness of sexual diversities due to family life (van Leent and Ryan, 2015). The authors identified that students are able to recognise same-sex parents, or have understandings about non-heterosexual adult relationships, however, they are generally unable to make a connection between “being gay” or “gay being wrong”, and having “two dads is cool”, as the same notion (p. 8). Therefore, it is evident that teachers acknowledge the potential problems of homophobic terminology but avoid addressing these problems with students as they believe “the privacy and rights of the parents need to be protected” (van Leent and Ryan, 2015, p. 11). The findings show that heteronormative regimes are adopted by teachers as this generally complies with the wishes of the broader school community (Cumming-Potvin and Martino, 2014). Cumming-Potvin and Martino (2014), recognise that parents have significant power around the discussion of diverse sexualities in classrooms. That is, they have a ‘gaze’ and ‘hover’ over the school and teachers (p. 328). In turn, this creates implications for educators who seek to deconstruct the issues of sexuality in the school environment. Evidently, the barriers between family relationships, parents, and teachers need to be deconstructed and