The National Teacher Shortage: Addressing the Needs of LGBTQ+ Educators to Increase Recruitment and Retention

Abstract

The LGBTQ+ community is one overlooked and underresearched in education recruitment and retention, as compared with other minoritized groups. A growing teacher shortage is rooted both in recruitment and in retention and can be mitigated by examining policies that support equitable preservice programs and reduce high teacher rates of attrition. This article investigates the current teacher shortage, examines its roots in issues of retention and recruitment, and situates the role of LGBTQ+ educators. I propose that the teacher shortage could be mitigated by creating a pipeline more attuned to the needs of queer teachers and reimagining school systems to become more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. This article argues for increased representation and imagines a school system that actively recruits and retains LGBTQ+ people.

The battle for trans rights: Political spectacle theory and its implications for education policy

“…The intentional exclusion of LGBTQ+ representation through teaching staff and curriculum further marginalizes and excludes queer students (Case & Amand, 2014;Cicero & Wesp, 2017). In instances like dress code regulations separated by the gender binary, policy actively discriminates against non-binary people (Castillo, 2022a(Castillo, , 2022b. Historically, sex education programs completely disregarded LGBTQ+ people or portrayed them as dangerous deviants, a characterization further amplified after the AIDS crisis in the 1980s (Blount & Guanci, 2020).…”