Teaching Against Homophobia

Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference

Conference Paper, Adelaide, 1998

Abigail Thonemann

Master of Public Policy/Honours

University of Sydney

The purpose of this paper is to report on my research on school-based homophobia. But before I begin I would like to explain a little about why I chose this topic. It all started here in Adelaide during my primary and secondary schooling. It was then that questions about gender and power first formed in my mind. At primary school I remember being told to leave the oval by a teacher because that was for boys to play sport, and at high school I remember the silence of teachers around the subjects of sexuality and gender. There seemed unwritten rules about what was acceptable.

To be back in Adelaide more than a decade later giving a paper on homophobia goes some way towards answering the questions of my earlier years.

I understand now that homophobia plays a large role in sustaining patriarchal patterns of power through the social construction of masculinity and femininity as opposites. Differences between the genders have been accepted as natural for so long that any efforts to explain them in any other ways meet with resistance.

My own research project met some initial resistance. The Sydney University Ethics Committee had initial reservations about my intention to interview focus groups of students. It feared a student from the focus group could be targeted for homophobic abuse after the interview.

The committee approved the study once it was amended so that students would be interviewed individually. It commented that the project was important research of a sensitive nature.

The NSW Department of Education and Training has been supportive of the project. However, there is an acute sensitivity around the issue of homophobia in schools. The Department made five requests for changes to the project over a seven month period before it was approved.

Thankfully, I was able to use the terms gay and lesbian, otherwise I would have found it very difficult asking some of the questions that I wanted to put. As far as I am aware, I am only the second researcher to evaluate school-based initiatives to address homophobia from a qualitative approach.

Now my methodology. I conducted 40 one-off interviews with staff, students, parents and principals at two government high schools in New South Wales. Both schools have addressed homophobia. One school, a selective school in an industrial regional city, addressed homophobia for the first time this year, using Anti-Violence Project posters and small group discussion.

The other school, a comprehensive school in an affluent Sydney suburb, has openly gay and lesbian teachers on staff and has been addressing homophobia within the structure of its HIV/AIDS program for 10 years.

I interviewed seven students at each school for half an hour or so and today I will be focussing on them. My research question is "how have schools responded to the 1995 New South Wales Department of School Education requirement that they address discrimination related to homophobia".

First I'll talk about the two major findings from the study and offer a gender analysis. Then I'll talk about the school's responses.

There are two major findings that underlie all the other findings and explain the way in which the schools have responded to the requirement. These two major findings are critical because they provide information about the preexisting climate around homophobia within school culture.

Major finding number one: homophobic language is mainstream and homophobia is indirectly reinforced in the school culture and curriculum.

Homophobic language is mainstream and especially in years 7 to 10 amongst boys. Homophobic terms are always used in a negative way whether they are a joke or an insult. Some of the things students said about homophobic terms are:

* "it's just a word, you hear it all the time"

* "it's a swear word"

* "it just pops into your mind"

* "you can't escape it"

* "it runs past me because I've heard it so often"

And most often "you're gay" means "you're stupid".

Students thought it was okay to use homophobic language but they thought it was inappropriate to use it around people who are gay or lesbian. I interpreted this aspect as a positive finding because it shows that students are aware of the possible effects of their language.

However, it has wider implications. The finding that homophobic language is mainstream resonates with experiences of gay and lesbian youth in studies carried out throughout the Western world.

Gay and lesbian youth often hear no positive depiction of their sexuality. They are derided in the vernacular of their peers and in the curriculum. Research by Lori Beckett on the New South Wales Personal Development, Health, Physical Education syllabus shows how the dominant view of society is promoted in the syllabus (Beckett, 1997). Heterosexuality is normalised and gay and lesbian sexualities are omitted or regulated and expressed in ways that perpetuate notions of weirdness and abnormality. Homophobia present in the syllabus in this way condones students' homophobic behaviour.

Major finding number two: students think of gay men and lesbians in stereotypical ways and gender construction is a very conscious process.

All students in the study thought that society is more free for them than it was for their parents and that was a good thing. They thought that stereotypes are breaking down and that discrimination against lesbians and gay men is wrong.

However, their responses reveal that they are deeply conscious of pressure, especially from peers, to conform to certain ways of being male or female. A girl with a shaved head or a tough appearance and a boy with an earring or a high voice are sure targets for jokes and insults because they display stereotypical gay and lesbian characteristics.

Let me give you two case studies. I have chosen two case studies, a girl from the suburban Sydney school and a boy from the regional school. Pseudonyms are used.

Mariannah is a girl in Year 11. Last year she shaved her head and was a target for verbal and physical homophobic abuse. Mariannah's attendance at school has dropped to about three times a week. She assures me this is not due to the harassment. However, I have assumed that her absence from school is due in part to the harassment because of the inconsistencies which arose during our interview. Many times she began to describe the effects then stops abruptly and says "it was fine, I didn't find it a problem". For most of last year she was harassed in the playground by four students in her year. During the interview she comments that homophobic harassment is usually boys to boys and girls to girls and that often teachers ignore homophobia in the playground.

Mariannah's experience is not uncommon. The effects of abuse on students who are perceived to be gay or lesbian are well documented in the literature on school-based homophobia. Many gay and lesbian students drop out of school, suffer depression and some attempt suicide. One third of completed youth suicides in Australia are by gay and lesbian youth. According to Jacqui Griffin's 1994 Australian study of school-based homophobia, 60% of gay and lesbian youth reported some form of harassment and many reported teachers were present and did not intervene (Griffin, 1994).

For Mariannah to report that homophobic harassment is boys to boys and girls to girls accords with research on gender and homophobia. Research by Debbie Epstein suggests that girls who deviate from the norm are punished by other girls when they push gender boundaries because heterosexuality needs to be proved (Epstein, 1995). Any display of femininities outside the ordinary is a repudiation of the norm. It cannot go unchallenged by those of the same gender. The act of punishing difference demonstrates the high value of heterosexual credentials in the dominant culture.

My second case study concerns Sam. Sam is in Year 11. He described homophobia as a personal issue, not something that the school should address and he wasn't aware of any homophobic harassment. Sam and his friends call each other poofter and faggot frequently. They believe that this is harmless unless it's overhead by a person who is gay in which case it would be inappropriate. Sam understands that a gay person overhearing it would be insulted. He goes on to reflect that calling a guy a girl is an insult, and girls overhear that all the time. Sam adds that on the sporting field, to call someone gay is to imply they are soft and there is pressure " to not do girls stuff"

Sam has made a vital connection between homophobic insults and sexism. In gender literature, the dominant culture gives a higher status to a tough, strong, sporty masculinity over other identities. To be a boy is not to be like a girl, as Sam puts it "to not do girls stuff'.

A heterosexual construction of masculinity and femininity as opposites creates within society a bind where masculine as strong and feminine as weak cause the cultural derision of femininity. Girls and gay boys are feminine and therefore weak. Insults like calling a boy a girl are culturally sanctioned in the dominant culture because of the relative privilege of masculinity. Remember the saying boys are strong like King Kong, girls are weak, throw them in the creek.

We know from research by Bob Connell that a heterosexual construction of masculine and feminine as opposites can permeate a great deal of the school's informal culture and curriculum (Connell, 1996b). Boys and girls have different conventions of dress and there is the gendering of knowledge. Some areas of the curriculum are defined as masculine and others as feminine.

We can see evidence of the gendering of knowledge and it's effects on students' subject choices in research by Wayne Martino and Maria Palotta-Chiarolli. For many boys it's just not socially correct to be good at school, it's just not cool to read (Martino, 1995a; Palotta-Chiarolla, 1994). Boys are often reluctant to take literacy seriously because it's something that girls do and to do that would be to be identified as weak, feminine and inferior. This is a conscious choice to avoid the gay label.

So how did the students respond to homophobia being addressed.

Thirteen out of fourteen students thought that homophobia should be addressed at school.

At the regional high school, introduction of the issue of homophobia was abrupt. It didn't involve students. Some students felt branded as homophobics; they felt that the school was making a big deal out of it all of a sudden.

At the suburban high school, students had a relatively higher level of empathy on the issues. Although students respected and liked gay and lesbian staff, they were scared about getting into trouble for using homophobic language.

Well, that's my research so far. My next task is to make connections between the findings and responses, and comment on how policy can help strengthen the process of teaching against homophobia. I would appreciate your comments on any aspect of my study. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beckett, L. (1997) Sexualities and the Intellectual Work of Gender Reform Symposium Overview. Australian Association for Research in Education conference paper, Brisbane.

Connell, RW. (1996b). "Teaching the Boys: new research on masculinity, and gender strategies for schools". Teachers College Record. 98.2.206-35.

Epstein, D. (ed)(1995) Challenging Lesbian and Gay Inequalities in Education. Buckingham: Open University Press

Griffin, J. (1994) The Schoolwatch Report: A study into Anti-Lesbian and Gay Harassment and Violence in Australian Schools.

Martino, W. (1995a) "Gendered learning practices: exploring the costs of hegemonic masculinity for girls and boys in schools", in Ministerial Councial for Education Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (1995) Proceedings of the Promoting Gender Equity Conference. Canberra: ACT Department of Education and Training, 343-64

Palotta-Chiarolli, M. (1994) Butch minds the Baby: Boys minding masculinity in the English classroom. Interpretations. Vol 27, no2.