Who wants to say ‘Gay?’ Public opinion about LGBT issues in the curriculum

Abstract

Public schools are currently a source of major political conflict, specifically with regard to topics related to LGBT representation in the curriculum. We report on a large nationally representative survey of American households focusing on their views on what LGBT topics are and should be taught, and what LGBT-themed books should be assigned and available. We report results overall and broken down by demographic, partisan, and geographic variables. We find that Americans report that they largely do not know what topics are being taught in schools, but they do not think LGBT topics are being taught to elementary children. There is widespread opposition to teaching about LGBT topics in elementary school, with more mixed support in high school. Voters are much more opposed to LGBT-themed books being assigned to students than simply made available to them (e.g. in libraries). There are very large splits in attitudes toward LGBT topics in schools, especially along political and religious lines and across states and counties based on partisan lean. We discuss implications of these findings for education policy and urge greater understanding of Americans’ views about ‘controversial’ topics in the curriculum.