‘No Outsiders’: moving beyond a discourse of tolerance to challenge heteronormativity in primary schools

Abstract

In this paper we describe a UK‐based participatory action research project that looks beyond the discourse of tolerance to investigate and challenge heteronormative processes in primary schools through reflective action research. This 28‐month ESRC‐funded project supports 15 primary teachers working in schools in three regions of the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own schools and classrooms. In this paper we will examine how the original principles on which the project design was based have manifested themselves throughout the course of the project, drawing upon examples of classroom practice and reflective discussions among project team members. We will explore how designing intentionally for collective participation has produced spaces for people to do and think in ways that have not only gone beyond what we imagined but have also challenged and sometimes contradicted our own ways of thinking.

Notes

1. Project reference: RES‐062‐23‐0095. The project ran from September 2006 to December 2008.

2. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by the whole project team, both to the project as a whole and to discussions that have informed our thinking in the current paper. At this point in the project, the teacher‐researchers are identified by first names only for reasons of confidentiality.

3. In English schools, school councils are composed of representatives of the pupil body—usually elected by their peers—who meet regularly with staff to discuss key issues and develop policies, for example on agreed codes of conduct within the school.

4. We are choosing to use the term ‘sexualities equality’ within this research, because we feel it evokes most clearly the concerns and issues being addressed. However, we acknowledge that there are champions of LGBT equality who would oppose this position, feeling that it is vital, above all, to be clear about the LGBT issues we are addressing.

5. Teacher‐researchers have chosen to be identified by their own first names in papers and presentations, rather than choosing pseudonyms. This has been part of the democratic decision‐making within the project, where it was felt that to hide teacher‐researchers' identities entirely was to deny them ownership and authorship of their own work.

6. These are the central principles of Every child matters, the government documentation that now underpins all work with children (see the Every child matters website at http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/aims/).

7. Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act stated that a local authority shall not ‘promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.