A multicultural must for every school counselor. - Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools: A Text for Teachers, Counselors, and Administrators - book review

Professional School Counseling, June, 2002 by Janet H. Fontaine

Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools: A Text for Teachers, Counselors, and Administrators by A. Lipkin; Westview Press; 1999; 504 pages, $39, hardcover.

The topic of homosexuality is one many educators--teachers, administrators, and school counselors--feel ill-equipped and under prepared to deal with as well as morally and politically driven to avoid. Yet, the fact remains that gay and lesbian students are already in classrooms and facing untold harassment and hardships that increase their risk of disengaging from the education process. Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools: A Text for Teachers, Counselors, and Administrators provides content and strategies that educate professionals to make a difference in the lives of their sexual minority students. Lipkin is both gentle and supportive in his challenge to become an advocate. His premise is that every educator has the responsibility to address the plight of gaining equity and inclusion for homosexual adolescents. He purports that regardless of whether one intends to outwardly challenge his or her school's policies and practices, accurate information about homosexuality is needed to simply address the misconceptions held by many individuals, educators and students alike, that fuel inappropriate behaviors. In addition to the belief that all players in the educational process need information on gay and lesbian topics, Lipkin's inclusion of very practical methods and techniques for transforming schools seems the greatest contribution of this work.

Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools: A Text for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators is really two books in one. The initial chapters a knowledge base about homosexuality--history's recording of homosexual behavior; theories attempting to explain the phenomena; psychological and genetic theories of etiology; gay and lesbian identity development; and mental health issues. Lipkin takes the reader on this historical journey to examine the construction of homosexuality within cultural and temporal contexts that ends with the conclusion that homosexuality has been part of social/sexual behavior of every major civilized society but was not a demonized concept until modern psychological theory and Christianity began to predominate Western thinking. His aim in this section is to provide the reader with enough background information to capably discuss the needs of gay and lesbian students and support the argument for change in public schools' treatment of these students.

The second part of the book delves into many of the practical issues educators face regarding this topic (e.g., gay and lesbian teachers, gay and lesbian families, how to go about school change at individual and systemic levels). Lipkin is not Pollyannaish in his suggestions nor cavalier in his encouragement to become a school change agent. His 20 years of experience as a public school teacher and with the Massachusetts Department of Education's Project for Integration of Gay and Lesbian Youth Issues in School Personnel Certification programs provided him with a sound foundation for offering realistic and workable suggestions for impacting schools. For example, in the chapter on school change, he provides a checklist of "What One Teacher Can Do," which categorizes activities from low risk (e.g., educate oneself about gay/lesbian issues) to high risk (e.g., call for faculty in-servicing in gay/lesbian studies). Lipkin provides a template of a state-wide program with the Massachusetts Model (Trinity Communications, 1994) which has successfully integrated gay and lesbian topics into teacher, counselor, and school staff professional development activities, provided school-based support groups, and fostered curriculum inclusion of gay and lesbian issues. He also provides valuable organizational and instructional resources.

This book is an important contribution to the growing body of literature about creating safe schools for all students. Whether one is responding to the challenge of transforming a school into one that is safer and more inclusive specifically for gay and lesbian students or for any disenfranchised group, this book addresses strategies that make it a multicultural must for every school counselor. Lipkin presents several sides to controversial issues and provides cogent and lucid arguments which challenge contemporary homophobic thinking. While pedantic in places, he has done an exceptional job of integrating the vast body of knowledge about gay youth and homosexuality, both historical and current, into a very readable and comprehensive text. The information it contains will assist school counselors in advocating for the fair treatment of all youth in schools and may even move some beyond tolerance to a more empathic understanding of sexuality minority youth issues.

Reference

Trinity Communications, Inc. (1994). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts department of education's safe schools program for gay and lesbian students: A quantitative evaluation. Boston: Author.