Multiple dimensions of safe space for LGBTQ students: school staff perceptions

ABSTRACT

Inclusive school environments have been shown to improve educational outcomes, retention, mental health and overall wellbeing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Anti-bullying approaches have been common strategies used in schools to promote safety for all students, yet a well-established critique among scholars and educators suggests such approaches by themselves are insufficient. Little research exists investigating the spatial aspects of forming LGBTQ-inclusive school cultures. This article reports on an Australian study exploring teachers’ and school staff understandings of how space influences inclusion and how they negotiateed or established ‘safe spaces’ for LGBTQ students. Drawing on the work of Edward Soja, we explored how participants constituted safety in conceived and perceived spaces, and how this informed the ways in which physical environments were established in the lived space to promote inclusion. We reveal the role of physical, discursive and curriculum spaces in everyday schooling activities and practices to promote LGBTQ inclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Safe space
• LGBTQ inclusion
• school
• teachers
• spatiality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We recognise that there are many variations and ongoing discussion of appropriate terminology to describe this population (see Monro 2020). Following other recent work in sexuality education scholarship (e.g. Helmer 2016), we use the acronym LGBTQ to refer to sexuality and gender diverse people and the many ways they may identify. We include ‘queer’ to capture all those who claim a nonnormative, nonheterosexual identity, although we recognise that this too is a contentious term.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Tasmania Creativity, Culture and Society Research Development Program.