Undoing Homophobia in Primary Schools

This book is a celebration of recognition, affirmation and inclusion by primary teachers, who have challenged the taken-for-granted norms and silences in primary schools around sexual orientation and gender expression. These norms and silences have left lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families marginalised, unrepresented and subject to multiple discrimination and have allowed embedded homophobia and transphobia to go largely unchallenged. Through their accounts of practice, reflections and interpretations, vignettes and images, primary school teachers describe how they have challenged this non-addressed area of inclusion across England, from a tiny village church school to urban and suburban settings. Working within and beyond the curriculum, they have broken boundaries in primary practice for sexualities in a struggle for greater equality. The teachers are all members of the No Outsiders project team, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Their work in 2006-2008 made worldwide news and attracted the attention of practitioners and policy makers at local and national level. The books shows how it is not only through planned innovations and policy developments that change happens but also, and crucially, through the day-to-day moments where new thinking leads to new action for equality and social justice. With its thought-provoking examples of good practice, lists of resources and examples of children's work, this is an essential book for teachers, teacher trainers, policy makers and equalities activists. It is a companion book to the academic analysis of the project team's work presented in "Interrogating Heteronormativity in Primary Schools: Analysing the Work of the No Outsiders Project", also published by Trentham.