Parental attitudes to the Australian anti-bullying Safe Schools program: a critical discourse analysis
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Parental attitudes to the Australian anti‑bullying Safe Schools program: a critical discourse analysis Alicia Shevlin1 · Peter Richard Gill1 Received: 15 November 2018 / Accepted: 23 April 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract LGBTIQ children and adolescents experience disproportionate levels of bullying. Safe Schools, an Australian anti-bullying program, has recently been a site of public debate, with parents and their imagined concerns being central to the debate. This study investigated how parents construct gender, sexuality, and bullying, in relation to Safe Schools. Utilising Critical Discourse Analysis, we analysed 11 parent interviews and identified four broad discursive themes: heterosexual anxiety, transhysteria, the contested ecology of bullying, and resistance. Many parents feared that children will be harmed mentally and sexually by exposure to the program, and that bullying is an isolated phenomenon. These attitudes serve a social function of maintaining heterosexual and cisgender hegemony, and a psychic function of disavowing the fluid nature of subjectivity. There was also evidence of resistance to these attitudes, with many contending that Safe Schools is necessary, due to bullying being viewed as a social phenomenon informed by homophobia and transphobia. Hostility towards transgender people was notable amongst parents. The discourses identified in this research highlight the strength of current anxieties around children and sexual subjectivity and how they function to undermine the lives of LGBTIQ people, including children who would benefit most from a meaningful implementation of Safe Schools. Keywords Bullying · Sexuality · Gender · Children · Discourse analysis · Safe schools
* Peter Richard Gill [email protected] 1
Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University Australia, Footscray Park, Ballarat Rd, Footscray, VIC, Australia
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A. Shevlin, P. R. Gill
1 Introduction Across Western countries, homophobic and transphobic attitudes are an issue in schools. In Europe, a survey of 93,079 LGBTI people found that 38% of all participants and 44% of the gay participants reported experiencing regular harassment when they were at school (European Union Agency For Fundamental Rights 2014). Similarly, a study of 305 pre-kindergarten through 12th grade teachers in the US reported that just under half of the respondents held at least one negative attitude toward the LGBTI community (Hall and Rodgers 2019). In Australia, a survey of more than 3000 LGBTIQ youth found that over 80 percent had experienced some form of abuse at school (Hillier et al. 2019). Safe Schools is an Australian government funded program designed to address high levels of distress in LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) youth, by making schools more inclusive. Safe Schools provides training materials, resources, and other support to help principals, teachers, and school communities support students to reach their full potential. In response to this program, there has b
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