Conference Agenda

This paper will discuss the findings from a recent research study exploring the experiences of high ability lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) post-primary students in Ireland, in particular the factors which create a positive or negative educational environment. The study also examines how this environment influenced overall identity development for the study participants. While previous studies exist on the experiences of high ability LGBTQ young people (see references), this is the first set of data outside of the United States.

The participant sample (n=155) was derived from current and former students of the Centre for Talented Youth, Ireland programme at Dublin City University. This is an enrichment summer programme for high ability young people that takes place on the university campus. The mean age for study participants was 18.4 and all attended post-primary school in Ireland. This was a mixed methods study, with quantitative data collected via an anonymous questionnaire and qualitative data collected via a series of interviews and focus groups. The majority of participants identified as LGBTQ (76.7%). The study found that the climate of an environment plays a key role in prevention of bullying, increased feelings of safety and overall social and emotional growth. Participants had a mixed experience at school, reporting a high frequency of anti-LGBTQ language, a low frequency of intervention when such language occurred, incidents of bullying and varying levels of peer and teacher support. Participants reported a positive experience at CTYI, with low levels of anti-LGBTQ language, higher levels of intervention and a higher overall perception of support from peers and staff. LGBTQ leadership and extra curricular activities were also singled out as key positive factors.

The study also explored the experiences of identity development for high ability LGBTQ young people. With no predetermined labels for gender or sexuality, participants were allowed complete self-identification in terms of their gender and sexual orientation. Overall, participants used 14 different labels to describe their gender and 17 different labels to describe their sexual orientation, with some using multiple labels and writing thick descriptions of their identity. Identity development was analysed under the themes of social and emotional development, gender norms, coming out as LGBTQ, friendships, identity rejection and identity affirmation. Each interviewee had very different experiences coming out at school, leading to either identity rejection or affirmation, both internally and externally.

At the end of the session, actionable items for educators will be discussed, in particular the factors which can create a positive learning environment for all LGBTQ young people.

Schools can be important sites for advancing peoples ability to build respectful relationships with one another, especially when the students come from diverse backgrounds (Schwarzenthal et al., 2020). However, the presence of diverse students in the environment does not alone lead to realizing competence but can lead to either positive, or in the worst case, negative attitudes towards diversity (Schmid et al., 2014; Schwarzenthal et al., 2020). Thus, there is a need to study how students in a diverse school position themselves in relation to rights of minoritized people which is the central aim of this study. Additionally, an aim of this research is to bring awareness to educators, researchers and practitioners involved in education and policy, in order to create counter educational opportunities to challenge problematic LGBT+ narratives that are now omnipresent throughout online social media content and quickly filtering into the contemproary Finnish school environment.

While there have been enermous gains regarding the rights of LGBT+ in previous decades in Finland and accross most Western contexts, there clearly remains more work to be done in education for social justice in order for people to interact in a way that avoids deficit perspectives (Mikander et al., 2018; Sleeter, 2014). Despite the growing awareness of minority rights for inclusion there remains at the same time exclusion and stigmatization of LGBT+ (Vijlbrief et al., 2019; Rosen & Nofziger). Studies show that LGBT+ youth are significantly more likely to experience higher levels of exclusion and higher levels of victimization (Birkett et al., 2009). Additionally, experiences of discrimination at school has increaingly been shown to be grounded in hegemonic masculinity, predicated on heterosexuality, physical dominance, normalization of violence and how gender intersects with other social locations such as ethnicity and social class (Rosen & Nofziger, 2019). Therefore, there is a clear need for active work against inequalities (Freire, 1973) through questinong power relations that hegemonic norms might produce (Alemanji, 2016; Hoskins & Sallah, 2011).

As difference is increasingly accepted in the mainstream, it seems that division is becoming more polarized at the extreme ends of the debate. Amid strong gains made by women's movements and social movements, a counter-revolution has emerged, one with no finite geographical or national boundaries, which is truly global in its reach - an epitome of technological globalization. The push back against now dominant mainstream narratives surrounding rights and justice comes from outside of the status-quo, from fringe actors who exploit fears and anxieties, capitalizing on male alienation, and bolstering a male victimhood narrative. Masculinities, understood as hegemonic (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), are ordered as such by creating symbolic value associated with dominant masculinities over subordinated ones. In other words, those reproducing and embodying hergemonc masculinity seem to be less suseptible to discrimination and exclusion. It is therefore important to provide education for social justice which could enable students’ mutual positive attitudes and the absence of discrimination in the surrounding context (Hoskins & Sallah, 2011), which could support the well-being of students from diverse background (Yeasmin & Uusiautti 2018).

Thus, there is a need to take a critical stance and go beyond simply getting along and instead focus on structural inequalities and overcoming inequities inherent in current social structures that marginalize non-dominant students and systematically prevent them from achieving their full potential (see e.g. Mikander et al., 2018). Hence, this study will investigate how students negotiate inequalties and the rights of minoritized people in the Finnish lower secondary environment, and how do they position themselves in relation to sexual and gendered "othereness".

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