A kaleidoscope: performing identities of LGBTQ+ educators in k-12 classrooms

Lynch, Carissa Marie (2023) A kaleidoscope: performing identities of LGBTQ+ educators in k-12 classrooms. Doctoral thesis, Northern Arizona University.

Text Lynch_2023_kaleidoscope_performing_identities_lgbtq+_educators_k-12_cl.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB)

Abstract

In the last couple of years, the political climate in the United States has brought more of a focus on LGBTQ+ people, educators, students, literature, and banned books in K-12 schools. The qualitative approach for the study was the narrative inquiry method. This study used semi-structured, open-ended interviews asking 11 LGBTQ+ educators to share their personal stories and experiences as educators. This narrative inquiry method recorded each participant’s life experiences as an LGBTQ+ person and an educator. This study asked LGBTQ+ educators to reflect, capture, and contribute their experiences and the influences of their sexual and teacher identity of whether they negotiate their performance of their sexual identities in their school district(s), school site(s), peers, students, and their families. Participants shared their past and present experiences and their future aspirations. Their detailed narrative stories were analyzed from the outcome of the educator’s interviews by “restorying” their stories, applying conceptions of themes, and coding the narratives, roles, plotlines, characterizations, and turning points. This study drew on previous literature that revealed a continued historical pathway that LGBTQ+ educators have an invisible set of expectations by the white heteronormative society’s morals and values of what and who is acceptable to teach children. This literature also found that LGBTQ+ educators learned from their experiences how “straight” society can create a climate of fear, hostility, microaggressions, and discrimination toward LGBTQ+ educators that keep them in the closet. The study explored whether the positive or negative attributes in their educational climates affect LGBTQ+ educators’ negotiation of their performance of their sexual identity. LGBTQ+ people know, understand, and feel the consequences of “coming out” at the wrong time and with bad people, so they perform on the front stage until they choose, which empowers them, not the system that tries to control them. We are losing good people who are good teachers; their fear and not wanting to deal with a system that continues to go by the heterosexual contract, that judges them without knowing them as a person first; they are leaving for an institution that will accept them as a person first. My study found that homophobic leaders continue to exist in our K-12 schools, and these are the people making LGBTQ+ educator’s lives hell. Keywords: LGBTQ+ educators, queer theory, Goffman’s performance theory, homophobia, identity, religion, social norms

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Goffmans Performance Theory; Homophobia; Identtity; LGBTQ+ educators; Queer Theory; Social Norms
Subjects:	L Education > LC Special aspects of education
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Education > Educational Leadership
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2026 18:07
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2026 18:07
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6311

Actions (login required)

IR Staff Record View

Downloads