The Elephant in the (Class)Room: Parental Perceptions of LGBTQ-inclusivity in K-12 Educational Contexts

When Does »Too Early« Become »Too Late«? Reflections of Croatian Secondary School Educators on the Persistence of LGBT Taboos in the Education System

“…In view of all of the above, and in particular given the insight into whether parents differentiate between supporting content related to sexuality in general and content related to sexual and gender diversity specifically, we support Ullman and Ferfolja's (2016) suggestion regarding the need to conduct explicitly focused research on LGBT inclusiveness on nationally representative samples of parents before making educational-political decisions and intervening in the curriculum. However, for an in-depth understanding of the educators' perspective and the complexity of the need to find a balance between their personal and professional positioning on a daily basis, we consider qualitative studies conducted with educators equally significant.…”

“…However, the results of research conducted on the basis of data collected in 2013 and 2014 on parents' attitudes to the introduction of the Health Education Curriculum, which the authors supplement with an overview of related research conducted in Croatia (CRO Demoskop, 2013;Janković et al 2013;Turčin, 2013;all quoted in Kuštreba et al, 2015), show that approximately three quarters of the surveyed parents actually support the curriculum. Although such results might initially seem surprising, a similar discrepancy between intense parental resistance to sexuality education represented in public and the lack of empirical evidence to confirm the massive scale of this resistance has been observed in various contexts (Depauli & Plaute, 2018;Peter et al, 2015;Robinson et al, 2017;Ullman & Ferfolja, 2016), although it should be noted that support for sexuality education is higher at the lower levels of the education system, which generally do not include explicit discussions of sexuality or sexual and gender diversity (Kuštreba et al, 2015;Ullman & Ferfolja, 2016).…”

Inclusive pedagogies for transgender and gender diverse children: parents’ perspectives on the limits of discourses of bullying and risk in schools

“…Schools and teachers are influenced by the culture of limitation which renders them fearful of acknowledging or celebrating gender (and sexuality) diversity in any meaningful way beyond, at best, what are generally risk-averse and reactive education policy guidelines (Ferfolja and Ullman 2020). Educational discourses intersect with discourses of childhood (Robinson, Díaz, and Townley 2019, 325) as well as a fear of an assumed likelydisapproving parent subject and community (Ullman and Ferfolja 2016) to position GSD/ TGD-related knowledges as controversial, risky, inappropriate and (often) impossible matter for educational conversations with young people.…”

Parents’ perspectives on the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity in K-12 schooling: results from an Australian national study

“…Parents were asked about their attitudes towards RSE, including their feelings about who is best placed to deliver this curriculum. These items were informed by previous explorations of parents' expectations of RSE and their various concerns in relation to its delivery and scope (Ollis, Harrison, and Richardson 2012;Peter et al 2015), including the authors' in-depth qualitative exploration of Australian parents' attitudes towards gender and sexuality diversity-inclusive education (Ferfolja and Ullman 2017b;Ullman and Ferfolja 2016). Furthermore, parents were asked how involved they wished to be in their child's RSE education.…”