LGBTIQ+ Youth and Experiences with Violence in Education

Abstract

In the article, we focus on young LGBTIQ+ individuals’ experiences with violence in education. Research show that LGBTIQ+ youth are targeted with various forms of violence within education; while most research focuses on peer-to-peer violence, the violence perpetrated by school workers, and their inactivity when it comes to addressing violence on the basis of gender and sexual identity, is often neglected. In the article, data gathered in the research Everyday life of young LGBTIQ+ individuals, as implemented by Pride Association in 2017, is presented. A total of 751 young LGBTIQ+ individuals aged between 16-30 participated in this research. In this article we focus on a specific aspect regarding their experiences with violence in education, namely, their experiences with violence perpetrated by schoolmates and school workers, including teachers and counsel workers, as well as on their feelings of safety in the school hallways and classrooms. Such violence is often addressed by ‘bullying discourse’, which rarely takes into account hetero- and cisnormative social structures and their manifestations in education, and it predominantly addresses bullying as a form of individual pathology and not as practices of violence that derive their disciplinary power in terms of enforcing normative enactments of gender and sexuality. In this regard, violence against young LGBTIQ+ individuals in education should be addressed within a broader framework that takes into account social power relations.