Windows of opportunities: Nordic perspectives on sexual diversity in education

ABSTRACT

The Nordic countries have often been depicted as progressive societies regarding sexual diversity and gender equality. These progressive changes in sexual minority issues, however, have not brought about radical changes in educational policies in addressing gender and sexual equality in schools. Both compulsory and upper secondary education often lack coherent protection of queer students. The same applies to specific policies on queer issues within the education system; they are hidden in the depths of many national curricula. In fact, a discrepancy exists in broader social policies supporting equality based on sexual orientation in the educational context. The main objective of this article is to investigate this discrepancy and justify it. In doing so, we will discuss in detail the educational policies and practices on sexualities currently operating in the Nordic area, particularly in Finland and Iceland. We analyse curricula documents, legislation, research reports, and other data from our own research projects, including ethnographic interviews, observation data, survey data, and written material.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual minority rights
• sexuality
• core curricula
• educational policy
• Nordic context

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jón Ingvar Kjaran, PhD, is assistant professor of sociology of education and gender/sexuality, University of Iceland, School of Education / Educational Research Institute.

Jukka Lehtonen, PhD, is Senior Researcher, PhD, Gender Studies, University of Helsinki. He currently works on workplace diversity and equality issues in WeAll project (weallfinland.fi) funded by the Academy of Finland.

ORCID

Jón Ingvar Kjaran http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6221-6382

Jukka Lehtonen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4899-1387

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland (Strategic Research Council) [Grant number 292883] and University of Iceland.