Investigating Transgender and Gender Expansive Education Research, Policy and Practice


Book Description

This book addresses an emerging and vital field of scholarship, which deals with transgender- and gender-expansive-informed education, policy, and practice. The collection provides a framework for thinking about the relevance of Transgender Studies for the field of education and specifically for K-12 schooling contexts. It argues for the need to engage transgender-informed epistemologies and provides insight into trans-affirmative education research, policy contexts, and practices with the view to generating knowledge about how the experiences of transgender and non-binary youth, gender non-conformity, and gender-creative expression are being addressed in the education system. Topics addressed range from trans-informed policy analysis and enactment across various contexts to addressing central concerns and polemics related to the policing and regulation of students’ gender identities and expression, with respect to washroom space in schools and the use of gender-neutral pronouns. The book is timely and pertinent, especially given that transphobia and addressing gender justice in the education system have been identified as significant human rights issues which require urgent intervention. Overall, this collection points to both the productive potentialities of this emerging body of research, and the limitations and challenges that need to continue to be addressed in the realization of a commitment to enacting a critical trans politics in education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Gender and Education.




Social Work Practice with Transgender and Gender Expansive Youth


Book Description

This fully revised third edition explores the childhood and adolescent experiences of transgender persons, providing foundational knowledge for social workers and related professions about working with trans and gender expansive youth. Organized through the lens of four distinct forms of knowledge – knowledge of lived expertise, community-based knowledge, practice knowledge, and knowledge obtained through formal/traditional education – this text balances discussion of theory with a range of rich personal narratives and case studies. Updates and additions reflect recent changes to the WPATH guidelines and the NASW Code of Ethics, include brand new material examining the origins of gender identity and non-binary identities, explore intersectional identities, and offer expanded content considering trauma-informed interventions and ethical issues. Each featuring at least one trans or gender expansive author, chapters present concrete and practical recommendations to encourage competent and positive practice. With a focus on both macro and micro social work practice, this book will be a valuable resource to any social service practitioners working with children or adolescents.




Trans Studies in K-12 Education


Book Description

A vital inquiry into trans issues in education, this compelling work argues for the design of education research, policies, and environments that honor all gender experiences and identities. Edited by two prominent figures in trans studies, Mario I. Suárez and Melinda M. Mangin, Trans Studies in K–12 Education brings together scholars and professionals representing a range of academic traditions, research methodologies, and career backgrounds to explore why and how schools should affirm gender diversity and challenge gender-based inequities. The collection offers a comprehensive examination of how gender is manifested in the educational context. Gathering a wealth of evidence, the book’s contributors expose the prevailing norm of gendered environments, which are entrenched in the very design and execution of educational research. The collection also lays out a critical overview of US laws and policies related to gender equity, gender identity, and gender expression and how these frameworks impact educational environments. These findings draw attention to deficit-oriented, pathologizing ideologies that surround nonconforming gender identities and the detrimental, often traumatizing effects on transgender students and educators. Throughout, the contributors recommend methods for establishing gender-affirming research, policy, and practice. They outline the sociopolitical and legal pathways that trans and nonbinary students and school employees may use to secure education and workplace rights. They discuss the positive gains made by professional development for teachers, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and community programs that successfully support transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Ultimately, the volume highlights the promise of creating K–12 education spaces that are liberating rather than constraining.




Transdisciplinary Feminist Research


Book Description

What is feminist transdisciplinary research? Why is it important? How do we do it? Through 19 contributions from leading international feminist scholars, this book provides new insights into activating transdisciplinary feminist theories, methods and practices in original, creative and exciting ways – ways that make a difference both to what research is and does, and to what counts as knowledge. The contributors draw on their own original research and engage an impressive array of contemporary theorising – including new materialism, decolonialism, critical disability studies, historical analyses, Black, Indigenous and Latina Feminisms, queer feminisms, Womanist Methodologies, trans studies, arts-based research, philosophy, spirituality, science studies and sports studies – to trouble traditional conceptions of research, method and praxis. The authors show how working beyond disciplinary boundaries, and integrating insights from different disciplines to produce new knowledge, can prompt important new transdisciplinarity thinking and activism in relation to ongoing feminist concerns about knowledge, power and gender. In doing so, the book attends to the multiple lineages of feminist theory and practice and seeks to bring these historical differences and intersections into play with current changes, challenges and opportunities in feminism. The book’s practically-grounded examples and wide-ranging theoretical orbit are likely to make it an invaluable resource for established scholars and emerging researchers in the social sciences, arts, humanities, education and beyond.




Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education


Book Description

Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) youth deserve a safe and empowering space to engage in high quality school music experiences. Supportive music teachers ensure that all students have access to ethically and pedagogically sound music education. In this practical resource, authors Matthew L. Garrett (he/him) and Joshua Palkki (he/him) encourage music educators to honor gender diversity through ethically and pedagogically sound practices across choral, instrumental, and general music classroom environments by highlighting the narratives and experiences of TGE musicians.




Mapping the Field


Book Description

From its origins in the University of Birmingham’s then Institute of Education in 1948, Educational Review has emerged as a leading international journal for generic educational research. Seventy-five years on, Mapping the Field presents a detailed account of education theory and research, policy, and practice through the lens of key articles published in the journal over this timespan. Volume II opens with Part I, a collection of articles examining teachers’ job (dis/) satisfaction and stress, and the gendered composition of the teaching workforce. Articles in Part II trace a shift in academic focus from schools seen as families/communities, to the parent-school relationship. The concepts of inclusion and equality—and strategies for their fulfilment in education—are interrogated in Part III. The volume concludes with Part IV, in which diverse identities in the education field are represented. Curated and introduced by the editors, the articles included in both volumes of Mapping the Field represent a careful selection from the work of scholars whose ideas have been, and continue to be, influential in the field of education. Overall, this major text covers a wide range of topics and offers original insights into educational policy, provision, processes, and practice from around the world.




LGBT Inclusion in Schools


Book Description




Improving Services for Transgender and Gender Variant Youth


Book Description

This expert guide to working with transgender and gender variant youth offers ways to make positive change to service provision for practitioners working with this group. Based on the latest research, the recommendations made by the author are backed up by statistics and data, and refer to first-hand stories and experiences. Exploring four key areas - mental health, physical health, sexual health and social health - the book sets out exactly what professionals need to know in relation to these areas and how to support trans youth in these circumstances. Providing clarity on a range of topics, this is the perfect overview for practitioners, as well as a useful text for students and researchers.




Strategies for Child Welfare Professionals Working with Transgender and Gender Expansive Youth


Book Description

Expert guidance for child welfare and youth care professionals looking to increase their knowledge about, and skills in, working with transgender and gender expansive youth and their families. Many professionals working in child welfare and youth service (including line workers, supervisors, managers, and administrators), lack adequate knowledge about trans or gender expansive identities, which means they are not sufficiently prepared to address or respond to the needs of trans or gender expansive youth. This guide will provide readers with the information they need to do their jobs effectively with youth of all genders, including guidance on relationships, discrimination, mental health, foster care and homelessness. It provides examples of successful practice in a variety of case narratives from youth and their families.




Queer and Trans Perspectives on Teaching LGBT-themed Texts in Schools


Book Description

This book focuses on queering texts with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT) themes in collaboration with students - young to young adult – and their teachers - both pre- and in- service. It strives to generate knowledge and deeper understandings of the pedagogical implications for working with LGBT-themed texts in classrooms across grade levels. The contributions in this book offer explicit implications for pedagogical practice, considering literature for children and young adults, and work in elementary school, high school, and university classrooms and schools. They give insights on exploring how queer and trans theories might inform the teaching and learning of English language arts with great respect to people who live their lives beyond hegemonic heternormativity and cisnormativity. They provide wisdom on how to provoke, foster, and navigate complicated conversations about sexuality, queer desire, gender creativity, gender independence, and trans inclusivity. In addition, they show how all of these are informed by an epistemological and ontological understanding of gender embodiment as a process of becoming. They offer insights into how queer and trans theories, as informed and driven by trans, non-binary and gender diverse scholars themselves, can move all of us beyond LGBTQ-inclusivity and inform reading, discussing, teaching, and learning in all of the classrooms and school contexts where we live and work. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.