Sexual minority teachers as activist-educators for social justice

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis empirical research explores the conditions, challenges, and lived experiences of how four diverse Canadian educators transcended heteronormative and gender-normative educational environments to become activist-educators for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer inclusion in their K–12 schools and communities. The co-creation of queer ethnographic counter narratives reveal the impetus and conditions that drove these teachers to become activist-educators in their K–12 schools, their motivations for coming out in heteronormative and gender-normative educational environments, the ensuing backlash they experienced during their efforts at promoting educational and cultural change, their individual processes in becoming critical change agents, and the educational strategies and tactics they developed from years of activist work within their schools.