The implications of this research study are that federal policies such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which is designed to prohibit discrimination of all individuals on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (Biegel, 2010), but not passed by Congress, would positively impact LGBT English language teachers' decisions to come out in their language classrooms.

What pedagogic challenges and opportunities arise as gay, lesbian, and queer themes and perspectives become an increasingly visible part of English language classes within a variety of language learning contexts and levels? What sorts of teaching practices are needed in order to productively explore the sociosexual aspects of language, identity, culture, and communication? How can English language teachers promote language learning through the development of teaching approaches that do not presume an exclusively heterosexual world? Drawing on the experiences of over 100 language teachers and learners, and using a wide range of research and theory, especially queer education research, this innovative, cutting-edge book skillfully interweaves classroom voices and theoretical analysis to provide informed guidance and a practical framework of macrostrategies English language teachers (of any sexual identification) can use to engage with lesbian/gay themes in the classroom. In so doing, it illuminates broader questions about how to address social diversity, social inequity, and social inquiry in a classroom context.

How do gay and lesbian teachers negotiate their professional and sexual identities at work, given that these identities are constructed as mutually exclusive, even as mutually opposed? Using interviews and other ethnographic materials from Texas and California, School’s Out explores how teachers struggle to create a classroom persona that balances who they are and what’s expected of them in a climate of pervasive homophobia. Catherine Connell’s examination of the tension between the rhetoric of gay pride and the professional ethic of discretion insightfully connects and considers complicating factors, from local law and politics to gender privilege. She also describes how racialized discourses of homophobia thwart challenges to sexual injustices in schools. Written with ethnographic verve, School’s Out is essential reading for specialists and students of queer studies, gender studies, and educational politics.

Structured around the Equality Act and written collaboratively, Diverse Educators: A Manifesto aims to capture the collective voice of the teaching community and to showcase the diverse lived experiences of educators.

This landmark book empowers educators to become visible, positive influences and role models for gay and lesbian students in their classrooms and schools. As most homosexual educators, and even students, remain invisible due to possible hostilities of “coming out,” this eye-opening book presents recent research to help gay and lesbian teachers break their silence. It encourages them to speak out on issues of homosexuality where curricula, civil rights, personal freedoms, and social entitlements are concerned. It promotes the development of school-based intervention for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. While the controversy over education and homosexuality is one of the most personally threatening in this nation’s history, the timely research presented in Coming Out of the Classroom Closet will hearten gay and lesbian educators to continue to strive for fair treatment as peers and for equal representation in educational materials. Pointing to reports of greater social support and legal protection than is assumed by most in the educational system, this book should be required reading for all persons concerned about continuing to provide high-quality education at all levels--college and university, secondary, and even elementary. Chapters of Coming Out of the Classroom Closet look closely at many issues surrounding the issue of homosexuality in schools, including a history of treatment of gay and lesbian educators and their legal rights; effects of internalized homophobia on homosexual educators; gay and lesbian student’s perceptions of their counselors and teachers ability to understand and help; beliefs, lack of knowledge, and lack of training of counselors and teachers about the needs of gay and lesbian youth; images of gays and lesbians in sexuality and health textbooks; important AIDS education; and the issue of homophobia.

Teacher educators have opportunities to include issues of multicultural education, equity, and social justice in the work done with preservice teachers. Including the educational and societal experiences of historically marginalized populations in curriculum creates spaces for teacher educators to model multicultural and social justice based pedagogies, while preparing teachers to work with and work for these students. The most effective way for teacher educators to address the unique perspectives of historically and currently marginalized populations is to integrate various perspectives throughout the curriculum (Grant & Zwier, 2012). Most teacher education programs address diverse populations via an integrated approach. In fact, Sherwin and Jennings (2006) found that potential student experiences regarding social class, race, and special needs populations were typically integrated into the curriculum, however, lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues were not. There is research that demonstrates how carefully planned and implemented educational interventions can have a positive effect on preservice teachers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward gays and lesbians (Butler, 1999). Despite the positive impact of addressing LGBTQ issues as a part of the teacher preparation program, Gorski et al. (2013) found that LGBTQ issues receive significantly less class time than other issues, especially race, and are, in fact, eight times more likely to actually be omitted from multicultural teacher educator courses. The inclusion of LGBT topics is important for a myriad of reasons. Most importantly, studies (GLSEN & Harris Interactive, 2012; Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, Bartkiewicz, 2010, 2012; Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer, Boesen, 2014; Kosciw, Greytak, Giga, & Danischewski, 2016) have revealed a negative school climate for students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender; this hostile environment can have dire consequences for these students. The impact of bullying and harassment due to LGBTQ students’ gender and/or sexual identities can produce a number of negative effects, including isolation from friends and family, depression, drug and/or alcohol use and addiction, low selfesteem, lack of engagement in school, academic failure, and fighting (Beam, 2007; Holmes & Cahill, 2004; Kosciw et al., 2010, 2012; Kosciw et al, 2014; Kosciw et al, 2016, Meyer, 2010; Wilkinson & Pearson, 2009). The negative climate does not just come from peer-to-peer negative interactions. In the most recent GLSEN study (Kosciw et al, 2016) it was found that • 57.6% of LGBTQ students who were harassed or assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff, most commonly because they doubted that effective intervention would occur or the situation could become worse if reported. • 63.5% of the students who did report an incident said that school staff did nothing in response or told the student to ignore it. • 56.2% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff, and 63.5% of students reported hearing negative remarks about gender expression from teachers or other school staff The aim of this book is to support teacher educators as they engage in the work of preparing pre-service teacher to work with and work for LGBTQ youth through explicit discussions of gender and sexuality. Chapters for this book include personal anecdotes regarding shifts in author’s thinking about including LGBTQ as a part of teacher preparation; specific pedagogical practices employed by authors to present LGBTQ focused material as a part of their coursework; the resistance authors have faced from students, parents and administration and their responses.

This book helps the reader to understand and mediate the debates that arise when gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, and queer/questioning students and their families ask for equal treatment from the schools and are opposed by conservative parents. Sexual Orientation and School Policy is a case study of one school districts' attempt to adopt and implement policies that include sexual orientation. This book describes the work of the Safe Schools Coalition who advocate and educate for equal rights for gay lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, and queer/questioning (GLBTIQ) students. Concerned Citizens, a group of conservative parents, opposed the inclusion of sexual orientation in the policies. Factors that either facilitated or impeded the implementation of the policies are highlighted, as are the strategies employed by the Safe Schools Coalition in educating opponents.

Teacher Education programs have largely ignored the needs of LGBTIQ learners in their preparation of pre‐service teachers. At best in most of such programs, their needs are addressed in a single chapter in a book or as the topic of discussion in a single class discussion. However, is this minimal discussion enough? What kind of impact does this approach have on future teachers and their future learners? This book engages the reader in a dialogue about why teacher education must address LGBTIQ issues more openly and why teacher education programs should revise their curriculum to more fully integrate the needs of LGBTIQ learners throughout their curriculum, rather than treat such issues as a single, isolated topic in an insignificant manner. Through personal narratives, research, and conceptual chapters, this volume also examines the different ways in which queer youth are present or invisible in schools, the struggles they face, and how teachers can be better prepared to reach them as they should any student, and to make them more visible. The authors of this volume provide insight into the needs of future teachers with the aim of bringing about change in how teacher education programs address LGBTIQ needs to better equip those entering the field of teaching.

This international collection of essays presents a contemporary overview of issues of sexual identity as they relate to teaching and learning in English from elementary through university levels. Coming from teachers in classrooms in India to North America to South Africa to Europe, the essays theorize lesbian, gay, and transgendered positions in the classroom, offer pedagogical strategies for teaching lesbian and gay studies, and examine the broader social and political contexts that shape classroom discourse and practices. Following the introduction by the editor, the 16 essays are: (1) "Cruising the Libraries" (Lee Lynch); (2) "When the Cave Is a Closet: Pedagogies of the (Re)Pressed" (Edward J. Ingebretsen, S.J.); (3) "Blame It on the Weatherman: Popular Culture and Pedagogical Praxis in the Lesbian and Gay Studies Classroom" (Jay Kent Lorenz); (4) "On Not Coming Out: or, Reimagining Limits" (Susan Talburt); (5) "(Trans)Gendering English Studies" (Jody Norton); (6) "The Uses of History" (Lillian Faderman); (7) "'What's Out There?' Gay and Lesbian Literature for Children and Young Adults" (Claudia Mitchell); (8) "Creating a Place for Lesbian and Gay Readings in Secondary English Classrooms" (Jim Reese); (9) "Shakespeare's Sexuality: Who Needs It?" (Mario DiGangi); (10) "Coming Out and Creating Queer Awareness in the Classroom: An Approach from the U.S.-Mexican Border" (tatiana de la tierra); (11) "'Swimming Upstream': Recovering the Lesbian in Native American Literature" (Karen Lee Osborne); (12) "Reading Gender, Reading Sexualities: Children and the Negotiation of Meaning in 'Alternative' Texts" (Debbie Epstein); (13) "Fault Lines in the Contact Zone: Assessing Homophobic Student Writing" (Richard E. Miller); (14) "Queer Pedagogy and Social Change: Teaching and Lesbian Identity in South Africa" (Ann Smith); (15) "The Straight Path to Postcolonial Salvation: Heterosexism and the Teaching of English in India Today" (Ruth Vanita); and (16) "Rememorating: Quilt Readings" (Marcia Blumberg). (NKA)

Gender identity and sexuality play crucial roles in the educational experiences of students, parents, and teachers. Teacher education must more directly address the ways that schools reflect and reproduce oppressive gender norms, working to combat homophobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, and gendered expectations in schools. This volume examines teacher candidates’ experiences with gender and sexuality in the classroom, offering insight and strategies to better prepare teachers and teacher educators to support LGBTQ youth and families. This volume addresses the need for broader, more in-depth qualitative data describing teacher candidates’ responses to diversity in the classroom (including gender, sexuality, race, class and religion). By using pedagogical tools such as narrative writing and positioning theory, teacher candidates explore these issues to better understand their own students’ narratives in deeply embodied ways. This book calls for schools to be places where oppression, in all its complexity, is explored and challenged rather than replicated.