Beyond binary discourses: making LGBTQI+ identities visible in the curriculum

In this chapter, it is argued that changes in wider social understandings of gender and sexuality, including the increased acceptance and legal recognition of LGBTQI+ identities and relationships, along with changes in discourses around gender, require major changes across the curriculum. In particular, an increase in the number of children, young people and adults identifying in different ways as transgender require us to make significant changes in the curriculum to include LGBTQI+ parented families, and LGBTQI+ children and young people, fully into school communities. After an overview of historical debates about gender and education in England and Wales, the author examines changes in assumptions about gender and schooling and discusses schools’ relationships to the heterosexuality. Through an analysis of school policies in two English Local Authority areas, she argues that these policies about what should be taught fail to represent the greater diversity about gender and sexual orientation in contemporary society. She concludes that there must be considerable change in both the official and hidden curriculum in order to rectify this.