DET Student Welfare director David McKie, Attorney General’s Department Crime Prevention Division director Steven Drew and Federation President Maree O’Halloran.

Challenging homophobia in educational settings

Current research clearly identifies schools as key sites of homophobic bullying and violence, writes KHYIAH ANGEL.

While homophobic bullying in secondary schools needs to be addressed consistently at a school, community and governmental level, research indicates unmistakably that this needs to occur in primary schools as well. Deakin University School of Health and Social Development researcher Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli told a Federation Friday Forum on February 11: "A discourse of innocence is not a valid excuse for choosing not to address homophobia at an early childhood level. "The discourse of innocence is used to maintain ignorance and not engage with these issues. It denies the worlds or realities that kids in same-sex families are coming from."

Dr Pallota-Chiarolli's research, entitled Love Makes a Family: Portraits of Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Parents and their Families, maintains that children begin school already having experienced 'heteronormativity' and homophobia. They are constantly inundated with messages through mass media and popular culture that depict gay and lesbian individuals and/or families, for example, television programs such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or gay and lesbian characters in prime time television soapies. Children receive both positive and negative messages from this exposure, often absorbing the mind-set of those people they live with. As a result some children enter kindergarten with discriminatory values and attitudes or negative stereotypes of gender and sexuality already developing.

As early as kindergarten, children are beginning to regulate their behaviours and attitudes in order to be accepted at school. A balanced exposure to images of diversity in the early years of schooling, combined with sensitive and supportive teaching, assists children to process the various messages they receive. Teaching children about acceptance and tolerance of the diversity of family structures contributes to combating discrimination in the early stages of schooling and is affirming for those students who come from same-sex families.

Learn to Include is a not-for-profit project established in 2002 that has developed teaching and learning aids for schools that may be interested in helping children learn about diverse families, in particular, families with two mums or two dads.

Two new picture books to add to the Learn to Include series were recently launched at Federation's Friday Forum on February 11. The Learn to Include teacher's manual Learning About Diverse Families in a Primary School Setting, coupled with children's books The Rainbow Cubby House and Koalas on Parade (both also available in a big book version) have been developed with assistance from public school teachers and the Department of Education and Training. Funding to produce the books and the Teacher's Manual was primarily provided by the Crime Prevention Division of the Attorney General's Department.

Federation President Maree O'Halloran said: "Prior to the release of these books teachers had real difficulties in locating appropriate resources to use in primary school classrooms."

Homophobia grows from ignorance and prejudice that begins in primary school. Teaching children about accepting and understanding their classmates' differences, such as gender or race or diverse family backgrounds, sets the foundations to make them better and fairer citizens, and ultimately works toward preventing discriminatory behaviour in the playground.

Khyiah Angel is the relieving Administration Officer (Media and Communications).

A friendly school makes a world of difference

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March 2005 contents