It's a Balancing Act: The<i>Good</i>Teacher and<i>Ally</i>Identity

Smith, Melissa J.

doi:10.1080/00131946.2015.1033517

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Although Tillmann-Healy (2001) research into gay and straight friendships and Gorman-Murray's (2013) study on gay-straight friendships demonstrate the power of proximity and situatedness for enacting attitudinal change and advocating for LGBTQ issues, it would, we suggest, also have an effect on how allies position themselves within their existing social networks (Smith, 2015). Being visible as an ally, it seems, is not only an act of world re-/making, but also of self re-/making.…”

Section: Allyship: What Is It? What Does It Mean?mentioning

confidence: 69%

Walking the Talk: LGBTQ Allies in Australian Secondary Schools

Vicars

Toledo

2021

Front. Sociol.

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Sexual culture(s) are an active presence in the shaping of school relations, and LGBTQ issues have long been recognized as a dangerous form of knowledge in school settings. Queer issues in educational domains quickly attract surveillance and have historically often been aggressively prosecuted and silence enforced. This paper examines the intersections of straight allies in promoting an LGBTQ visibility and agency in Australian secondary schools. Drawing on interviews with “straight”-identified secondary students, a narrative methodology was utilized to explore the presence of student allies for making safe schools. Drawing on straight secondary students' responses to LGBTQ issues in their schools, firsthand accounts of intervening in heteronorming school cultures focus on experiences of being an ally to address LGBTQ inclusivity in Australian secondary schools.

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Section: Allyship: What Is It? What Does It Mean?mentioning

confidence: 69%

Walking the Talk: LGBTQ Allies in Australian Secondary Schools

Vicars

Toledo

2021

Front. Sociol.

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“…Chapter Seven: Towards a Queer/ing Teacher Professionalism Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex teachers face exceptional constraints around identity and expression in response to the discourses of teacher professionalism that are reinforced through institutional texts, legislation, and media discourses. Such discourses position gender and sexual diversity as inappropriate in the classroom, particularly when shared with students, and suggests that queerness poses a threat not only to the "innocence" of the child, but to the family unit as well (Edelman, 2004;Halberstam, 2011;Russell, 2010;Smith, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, control was enacted through the policing of language, deeming conversations of sexuality as largely inappropriate and particularly so within specific relationships established through fiduciary obligation (i.e. teachers and students, parents and children) (Foucault, 1990;Smith, 2015). This power continues to function through silencing and secrecy, especially in the withholding of information about sexuality from children and youth (Rubin, 1984).…”

Section: Discourses and Silencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this policy speaks to appropriateness of instruction and learning materials and not just the learning outcomes, the discursive power of the appropriate/inappropriate dichotomy is often forcefully employed to censor information about gender and sexuality within schools (Robinson et al, 2017;Smith, 2015). In my tenure as a classroom teacher, I have not heard the language of "appropriate/inappropriate" be employed as consistently or as aggressively within any other curricular area to contest content or learning materials.…”

Section: Rocky View School Division and Family Life Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Life and Politics of Passing: Gender, Professionalism, and the Queer Teacher

Anderson¹

2020

Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting

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There is a dearth of research that considers how discourses of professionalism intersect with gender and sexual diversity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) teachers in a Canadian context. The Alberta Teachers' Association released its first resource aimed to support LGBTI teachers in early 2018, suggesting that gender and sexually diverse teachers are just starting to gain visibility within their professional organization. Through autoethnography, Institutional Ethnography, and Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis examines how LGBTI teachers experience and perform their gender in response to conceptualizations of teacher professionalism that dictate queerness-particularly "visible" queerness-as contrarian to the neutral subjectivity that teachers are expected to uphold. With the growing relevance of queer-affirming spaces in school, such as Gay-Straight or Queer-Straight Alliances, it is necessary to examine possibilities of a queer professionalism and changing expectations for professional practice in queer spaces. LGBTI teachers in Alberta need more than recognition from their professional organization and this research begins to conceptualize a queer professionalism for teachers that breaks the bounds of heteronormativity in order to support and celebrate gender and sexual diversity broadly within Canadian schools.

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“…They may include high intelligence-analytic ability, capacity to gain subject-matter expertise and to master education-related knowledge; teaching skills-explaining ideas and concepts clearly, motivating and sustaining student interest, using active-learning techniques, and acting as a facilitator to encourage and guide learning; interpersonal skills-classroom management capability, caring, empathy, and tolerance for diversity; motivation-having passion and reasons for being a teacher; and so on (Connell, 2009;Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2005;L. Liu, 2009;Smith, 2015). Likewise, teachers on staff who are unintelligent, untrained, unmotivated, burnt out, and so forth are likely to be conducive to poor student achievement and precluding staff development and growth (Nixon, Packard, & Dam, 2016;Ruth, 2014;Winters, 2012).…”

Section: Ensuring Teachers' Suitability For the Jobmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensuring Teachers’ Job Suitability: A Missing Component of Instructional Leadership

Shaked¹

2019

Journal of School Leadership

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Instructional leadership can be defined as an educational leadership approach whereby the school principal is involved in a wide range of activities aiming to improve teaching and learning for all students. Surprisingly, the literature about instructional leadership practices has not mentioned school leaders’ practices for hiring appropriate teachers and for determining whether existing teachers are the “right people” for the job. This suggests that instructional leaders are not necessarily expected to ensure that the right people are on board. The current study’s goal was to explore principals’ perceptions regarding their role in ensuring teachers’ job suitability and its relation to instructional leadership. Data collection included interviews with a diverse sample of 59 Israeli principals. Data analysis revealed that school principals perceived the issue of teacher hiring/firing as complicated. Therefore, they often regarded related tasks—such as deciding which attributes are most important for effective teachers, determining how such effective teachers can be proficiently screened for hire, and executing dismissal of ineffective teachers—as impossible or impractical. The current study suggests that this perception led principals to refrain from considering the activities involved in ensuring teacher suitability as means to improve teaching and learning. Practical implications and further research are discussed.

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It's a Balancing Act: TheGoodTeacher andAllyIdentity

Cited by 9 publications

References 48 publications

Walking the Talk: LGBTQ Allies in Australian Secondary Schools

Walking the Talk: LGBTQ Allies in Australian Secondary Schools

The Life and Politics of Passing: Gender, Professionalism, and the Queer Teacher

Ensuring Teachers’ Job Suitability: A Missing Component of Instructional Leadership

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