Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools

by Lipkin,Arthur

• ISBN13: 9780813325354
• ISBN10: 0813325358
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780429983009
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-01-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Scholarship on homosexuality, gay and lesbian identities, history, and culture came to universities too late for most elementary and secondary school educators, leaving them unprepared to deal with these subjects. Moreover, some teacher education faculty still neglect these topics out of moral scruple, fear, or inattention to new research and practice. Yet teacher education and training must incorporate these issues, if only because the plight of homosexual adolescents has become increasingly apparent.Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools,written by veteran teacher and university instructor Arthur Lipkin, provides a foundation in gay/lesbian studies and offers models for equity, inclusion, and school reform. It is designed to help teachers, administrators, counselors, and policymakers understand the significance of gay and lesbian issues in education; to aid communication between gay and lesbian students and their families and schools; to facilitate the integration of gay and lesbian families into the school community; and to promote the inclusion of gay and lesbian curricula in a range of disciplines. This book is also designed to promote the healthy development of all students through reducing bigotry, self-hatred, and violence. Bringing together thirteen topics related to homosexuality and education,Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schoolsmakes the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience part of a democratic multicultural vision.

Author Biography

Arthur Lipkin, Ed.D., is an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and founder of the Gay and Lesbian School Issues Project. He is currently directing the Safe Colleges Program of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and previously headed the Massachusetts Department of Education’s Project for the Integration of Gay and Lesbian Youth Issues in School Personnel Certification Programs.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
Overview of the Problem	1	(13)
Diversity in Our Culture	1	(1)
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality	2	(2)
Homophobic Violence	4	(3)
Barriers to Prevention and Treatment of Heterosexism	7	(7)
The Theories of Homosexuality	14	(19)
Historical Essentialism	15	(1)
Social Constructionism	16	(7)
The Essentialist-Constructionist Debate	23	(2)
Toward a Synthesis	25	(4)
Implications for the Present	29	(4)
Etiology	33	(12)
Psychological Theories	34	(1)
Genetic Theories	35	(5)
Multiple Interactive Causes	40	(1)
Why Ask---Why Now?	41	(4)
Homophobia and Heterosexism	45	(20)
The Theories of Kite and Herek	47	(2)
Homophobia and Moral Development	49	(6)
Sexism and Homophobia/Heterosexism	55	(1)
Gender as a Predictor	56	(1)
Internalized Homophobia	57	(3)
Homophobia and Behavior	60	(1)
Institutional Heterosexism	61	(4)
American History	65	(34)
Colonial America	66	(1)
Industrialization	67	(7)
The Impact of World War II	74	(2)
The Postwar Experience	76	(1)
The Fifties	77	(5)
Pre-Stonewall Militancy	82	(3)
The Stonewall Riots	85	(7)
The Seventies	92	(3)
The Eighties	95	(1)
AIDS	96	(1)
The Nineties	97	(2)
Identity Formation	99	(18)
Developmental Models	100	(4)
Limitations	104	(1)
Pitfalls	105	(2)
Developmental Needs for Successful Navigation	107	(1)
Stigma Management	108	(1)
Gender Differences	109	(5)
The Human Development Model	114	(3)
Multiple Identities	117	(24)
Class	119	(1)
Race and Ethnicity	120	(19)
Definitional Pressures	139	(2)
Counseling Issues	141	(53)
Mental Health and Risk Assessment	142	(3)
Counseling Areas	145	(19)
Counseling Students	164	(15)
Counseling Families	179	(7)
Counseling Multiple Minorities	186	(8)
Gay and Lesbian Teachers	194	(24)
History	195	(2)
Concerns	197	(11)
Identity Management	208	(3)
The Personal Cost of the Closet	211	(1)
The Benefits and Responsibilities of Coming Out	212	(1)
Effects on Students	213	(2)
When to Come Out	215	(2)
Preparing for Fallout	217	(1)
Gay and Lesbian Families	218	(12)
Legalities	218	(1)
Societal Prejudice	219	(1)
The Research	220	(4)
Problems and Concerns	224	(2)
What Schools Can Do	226	(4)
School Change	230	(33)
Changing Individuals	231	(8)
Changing the School	239	(15)
Changing Administrators	254	(4)
Changing the Community	258	(2)
What One Teacher Can Do: A Checklist	260	(3)
The Massachusetts Model	263	(25)
The Safe Schools Program	264	(1)
New Laws and Standards	265	(1)
Responses from the Schools	266	(3)
School Policies	269	(2)
Staff Training	271	(2)
Gay / Straight Alliances	273	(3)
Limitations of the Massachusetts Model	276	(12)
Reform and Opposition	288	(39)
State and Municipal Reforms	288	(12)
National Organizations	300	(7)
Opposition	307	(20)
Curriculum	327	(42)
Why Curriculum?	328	(9)
Curriculum as Change Agent	337	(5)
The Disciplines	342	(17)
Sanitizing	359	(4)
Publishers	363	(1)
National Curriculum Projects	364	(1)
Faculty Training	365	(2)
A Last Word	367	(2)
Notes	369	(116)
Index	485