Courses: Gender roles and communication, interpersonal communication, communication theory. Objectives: This activity introduces students to the social construction of gender, and asks them to consider gender diversity by understanding that shades of pink and blue exist within the binary. Specifically, students are given blue or pink color…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Cultural Connections in Schooling." Contents include: (1) A Defining Moment for…

Introduce diversity and social-emotional learning to elementary students through a wide array of culturally relevant, quality children's literature. This valuable resource shares recommendations for books that explore race, ethnicity, gender, (dis)ability, religion, and more. The authors pair activities with book suggestions to promote healthy…

The 2018 Icelandic film entitled "Woman at War" deals with one of the common tensions explored in feminist literature, that of a woman being forced to choose between a public/political life and private/family life. In this case, the public life is one as an environmental justice vigilante, and the private life is becoming an adoptive…

Pauli Murray was an activist, legal scholar, author, and she was also queer. Her impact on the civil rights and women's rights movements cannot be overstated. The authors present the reader with the potential for elementary teachers to disrupt and "unmute" curricular silencing by shifting focus to Pauli Murray's story and work in the…

We live in a time when the question of who is (or is not) depicted in public monuments is a topic of heated discussions across the nation. For example, the removal of Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, resulted in a violent protest in 2017. Such debates concerning the display and preservation of Civil War monuments center around…

The author recently completed a three-year program in early childhood education in BC and became interested in the evolution of gender development in the early years. Findings of this policy and programs research reveal that the work has been done by upper levels of the provincial education system, but the created programming has not translated…

This article outlines a thinking framework that any teacher can use to adapt curriculum through a lens of gender diversity. The authors illustrate the adaptation of several sample lessons to achieve three key outcomes: (1) to support and reduce harm to LGBTQ students; (2) to engage all students with inquiry into science in society; and (3) to…

When the author's spouse identified as female (they had been assigned male at birth), she did not consider how it would change her practice as a high school biology teacher. However, her spouse's entrance into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA+) community has significantly changed her teaching approach.…

This toolkit has been developed for secondary school teachers and secondary school young learners (14-15 years old). It aims to support teachers to organise discussions in the classroom to effectively address gender stereotypes, based on the example of the transport sector. Other than secondary school teachers, this toolkit also allows school…

This case study follows Maggie, a principal of a large urban elementary school, as she navigates principalship as a woman, revealing various gendered discourses along the way. Maggie recognizes gender as a factor and makes distinctions between male and female ways of leading. She reveals some of the barriers she faces as a female principal and…

A nationwide study (Kosciw et al. 2016) reveals a troubling truth: More than 80% of students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) have experienced verbal or physical harassment at school and reported higher absenteeism and lower grades due to this harassment. Even more troubling: Many of these students (about 60%) reported…

LGBTQ students in many parts of the United States often experience hostility on the part of other students, teachers, and administrators. This article reviews current terminology, examines present-day attitudes and recent literature, and offers suggestions to educators who want to create safe spaces for all students in their classrooms.

As queer-identified women and former elementary school teachers who now work in universities as teacher educators, the authors spent the past decade developing a range of approaches to help elementary school teachers integrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-inclusive practices into their teaching: "expanding…

Courses: Introduction to advanced classes in Media Studies, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Race, Communication, and Advertising. Objectives: In this unit activity, students critically assess advertisements that co-opt female empowerment and then identify ways they can resist such strategies.