In Praise of Diversity: why schools should seek gay and lesbian teachers, and why it's still difficult

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article begins from imagining what it would be like to target recruitment for teachers at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT) people, and then examines in some detail two kinds of discrimination (or pathology) which makes life in the world of education problematic. It then turns to why, in spite of these difficulties, lesbian and gay teachers bring particular personal qualities to teaching, as well as inspiring necessary structural changes. That’s something that I had a problem with to start with because you start asking yourself whether you should be a teacher. I’ve never asked anybody if I should or not. But it’s never covered and I’ve never known whether I should or not. [Interview with Nikki, primary trainee, 2000] I tried recently to imagine what an advert would look like aimed exclusively at recruiting gay and lesbian teachers, a pink combination of ‘Your Country Needs You’ and the rather clever, thought-provoking stills and clips from the Teaching Development Agency for Schools (TDA). The temptation might be to feature people like Graham Norton, Julian Clary or Martina Navratilova at the front of a class, suggesting that you too could be like them. While praising their various skills and personalities, nothing could be less helpful, in my view, either to the teaching profession as a whole or to the LGBT portion of it. Stereotypes would be reinforced, and the pursuit of sexualities equality put back. Instead, with a particular focus on recent research undertaken with my colleague Nick Givens, I hope to show in this article what strengths LGBT teachers bring to a school community, in personal and structural terms, and by extension, the benefits of gay and lesbian pupils, parents and governors to the world of education. First, however, I describe the unsympathetic context of schools for most gay and lesbian adults and children, in terms of overt discrimination and where more