Next Steps for Research and Practice

While queer inclusion is gaining traction around the country, it is still a nascent concept to many. There is much more work to do, and much more that could be done to support states, districts, and teachers taking it on. Depending on your role in the education system, here are suggestions for moving forward.

For Researchers

Before we can consider policy recommendations to advance queer inclusion, we need much more data on queer and trans students, their experiences in the classroom, and the educators who support them. This is easier said than done, as collecting data on queer and trans students is difficult because there are a number of sensitivities that must be considered. Gender and sexual identities may change over time and so too does the language we have to describe and categorize them. Similarly, the taxonomy itself—how we functionally group queer identities for tracking purposes—can be extremely complicated. Tracking these identities and experiences of young students in particular, who may be just starting the process of orienting themselves to the world, can be futile. Nevertheless, quantitative information about academic and social-emotional outcomes, not to mention student health and well-being, is needed to make a strong case for the importance of this work.

For District and School Leaders

Regardless of the number of available resources—and of the quality of those resources—there is a limit to what teachers can do without explicit, active, and ongoing support from district and school leaders and administrators. With this critical support, queer and non-queer teachers alike would have job security when thinking about this work, as well as the time and resources to actually invest in it. A next step for district leaders is to assess the professional-learning workload of their teachers and set priorities for learning about queer inclusion. Leaders can start by integrating queer inclusion into current trainings on culturally responsive teaching, many of which are already underway around the country. District leaders could also partner with LGBTQ groups and developers of professional learning materials to produce new training materials. District leaders could then share those materials under an open license, train educators on how to use them, and set standards for continuously improving them. Leaders could track the effectiveness of these initiatives by setting up systems to gather feedback from teachers about how well they worked to improve students’ engagement and sense of belonging in the classroom.

For Educators

Educators should consider ways in which the current materials and practices they use in the classroom may be sending messages—negative or positive—to queer students. Even for the teacher who is heavily invested in this work, there is always room for greater inclusion, deeper conversations, and investigation about what content will be of the highest quality and relevance for their students. Educators seeking LGBTQ-inclusive content and teaching strategies can begin by identifying what types of content—for instance, passages from a lawmaker’s speech or plans for opening a class dialogue about LGBTQ rights—would be most valuable for their classroom. They can then determine if it is available under an open license, which would enable them to adapt it to be more inclusive, by providing gender-neutral prompts for writing assignments when needed, as just one example. The ability to adapt and customize content for classrooms and students and to share materials hold benefits for educators and students alike. Flexible tools like OER seem more important than ever, given the newly recognized importance of providing students with learning environments that are relevant and responsive to their strengths, needs, and identities.

With more information, leadership engagement, and easily accessible resources, teachers could be better able to support and engage queer students regardless of context. Instead of feeling alone and disheartened, teachers like Anna could see a path forward.