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Teachers
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Date
2025-03-18
Authors
Neary, Aoife
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing
Published Version
Abstract
This entry discusses key themes from across 30 years of research on the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ teachers across various contexts. The extent and shape of LGBTQ+ teachers' everyday labour around the politics of visibility in schools is outlined. As part of this narrative, key intertwining structural and systemic factors affecting these everyday negotiations are discussed, including the cis-heteronormative fabric of school life, discourses of childhood innocence and age-appropriateness, curriculum and teacher education, equality and employment legislation, policy and leadership. Ultimately, this synthesis of research provokes a scepticism around neat or simplistic solutions to the problem of cis-heteronormativity in schools, illustrating how teachers' everyday work reveals a messy but nevertheless hopeful process of change that involves simultaneous conformity, constraint, transgression and transformation.
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Keywords
Teachers , Primary education , Secondary education , Schools , LGBTQ+ teachers , Cis-heteronormativity , Homophobia
Citation
Neary, A. (2025) 'Teachers', in Cover, R. and Newman, C. E. (eds.) Elgar Encyclopedia of Queer Studies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 369–371. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803922102.ch099