Lesbian Mothers' Bids for Normalcy in Their Children's Schools

Educational Forum, The, 2009 by Bower, Laura A, Klecka, Cari L

Abstract

Albeit growing in number, lesbian mothers and their children remain a statistical minority in schools. Lesbian mothers in this study described their families as "normal" or "just like any other family." From the perspective of queer theory, normal is a socially constructed and insidious concept. This study analyzes both the strategies participants used to be recognized as normal in their children's schools and the reasons such recognition was perceived to be important by participants.

As many as ten million school children in the United States have lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) parents (Pawelski et al. 2006), yet teachers lack the preparation and knowledge base necessary to welcome these students and their families into classrooms (Kissen 2002). This is a concern for education today because attitudes toward homosexuality differ markedly among teachers, ranging from very supportive to noticeably hostile (Bliss and Harris 1999; Mudrey and Medina-Adams 2006). For example, male teachers and religious teachers express more discomfort than other teachers in interacting with gay and lesbian parents (Maney and Cain 1997; Kahn 2006). Still, educators report not receiving training on issues related to sexual orientation (Bliss and Harris 1999). Moreover, teacher education programs and curricula do little to prepare teachers to work with LGBT parents and their children. Inclusion of sexual orientation among diversity topics in teacher education programs remains inconsistent across universities, and the programs that address sexual orientation in coursework fail to do so in field-based practica, thus limiting the practical application of the information learned (Sherwin and Jennings 2006; Robinson and Ferfolja 2008). Similarly, texts used in education courses tend either to omit LGBT issues or problematize homosexuality by linking AIDS and gay men (Young and Middleton 2002; Macgillivray and Jennings 2008).

Teachers' lack of preparation to interact with sexual minority families (defined as those who are a statistical minority as a result of sexual orientation) exacts a high price. Children with gay and lesbian parents experience as much harassment as their peers who identify as LGBT (Cianciotto and Canili 2003). This is particularly troubling because, as evidenced in Kosciw and Diaz (2005), 64 percent of sexual minority students report experiencing verbal harassment within schools, and 38 percent report physical harassment. LGBT parents and their children express a fear of bullying, feelings of isolation, and concerns about a lack of inclusiveness of alternative families in curricula (Ray and Gregory 2001; Mercier and Harold 2003; Bos et al. 2004). Sexual minority parents who report positive relationships with their children's schools discuss working intentionally to foster such relationships or selecting schools based on the school's reputation and history related to LGBT issues and individuals (Casper and Schultz 1999; Lindsay et al. 2006; Kosciw and Diaz 2008).

Given the current landscape for sexual minority parents, it is important to examine how they navigate their children's schools and their relationships with these schools to better understand how parents and teachers can work together to promote student learning. Research on sexual minority parents and their experiences within the schools is critical for greater awareness of how parents influence or are influenced by teachers' attitudes (Bliss and Harris 1999). This study explores lesbian mothers' experiences with their children's schools from the perspective of queer theory.

Philosophical Orientation

Queer theory - with its attention to the fluidity, complexity, and performance of identity, in addition to its focus on constructions of normal - guided this research. Queer theory contests notions of natural, stable genders and sexual identities (Butler 1990; Pinar 1998; Warner 1999). Through a queer theory perspective, it is argued that sexuality, rather than being biologically determined, is constructed by society and controlled through institutional discourses (Foucault 1978). "Gender ought not to be constructed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts" (Butler 1990, 179).

Both gender and sexual identity are a matter of performance (Butler 1990). This performance consists of dress, speech acts, gestures, and so forth. The performance of gender does not represent or mask true gender identity; the performance itself is gender. The same applies to sexuality. "There is nothing natural about human beings: we are socially constructed, produced by language, television, family albums" (Morris 1998, 278). Performance of gender or sexuality depends on socially constructed norms, which are enforced by educational, legal, medical, and social discourses (Foucault 1978). Queer theory unearths these norms, exploring how notions of normal are constructed and enforced within particular contexts.