Chapter 2: “No Matter What Personal Feelings we Have…”: Exploring the Tension Between Preservice Teachers’ Personal Ideologies About and Professional Responsibilities for LGBTQ Students

Colleges of education routinely prompt conversations around disparate schooling outcomes for youth who identify as Lgbtq (Mudrey & Medina-Adams, 2006; Sears, 1992; Sherwin & Jennings, 2006). Increasingly, they are also working to integrate more explicit curriculum and instruction for preservice teachers (PSTS) and teacher leaders regarding anti-homophobia and anti-heterosexism (e.g., Blackburn, Clark, Kenney, & Smith, 2009; Clark, 2010; Mulhern & Martinez, 1999; Robinson & Ferfolja, 2008; Vavrus, 2009). Indeed, teacher education is experiencing an increased focus on queering the field (e.g., Bower & Klecka, 2009; Murray, 2015). In our work as educators of teachers and teacher leaders, we face many barriers and obstacles to this work (Wyatt et al., 2008), which has been characterized as risky business (Robinson, 2005), and we have worked with PSTS and teacher leaders who appear to exemplify typologies identified in existing literature that reports on studies around teacher education, gender education, heteronormativity, and topics related to lgbtq identity in schools and classrooms, such as those that distinguish between “Anti,” “Ally,” Or “Neutral” stances (Clark, 2010, p. 707). We argue, however, that in our work in the deep south at a conservative institution, anti positions have been rare, and ally positions have been anomalous. Furthermore, we have encountered a particular challenge that is not often addressed in the literature: the conflict of ideology that occurs between and among deeply held faith beliefs and beliefs about what it means to teach all students, including students who identify as lgbtq and/or students who come from lgbtq families. The ways in which our PSTS and teacher leaders have navigated that conflict situates many of them as having neutral, or even discriminatory, stances toward lgbtq students and families, and the notion of neutrality is often critiqued as a privileged position that serves to reinforce dominant ideology. There has been some reporting on PSTS’ articulation of the internal conflicts they face in relation to their religious beliefs and inclusion of lgbtq students (Larrabee & Morehead, 2008, p. 8), but little work examines the sustained intersection of religious ideology and teachers’ work with lgbtq students and families. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to report our experiences and reflections on supporting undergraduate PSTS as we pushed them to become anti-heteronormative and anti-homophobic educators, and the implications of a pervasive conservative christian ideology for this work. We also explore the implications of conservative christian ideology and highlight challenges involved in preparing teachers, especially in the deep south, for their future roles in public schools as advocates for all students and families. we focus here on one semester, but we note that all of our relevant experiences with aspiring teachers and teacher leaders frame the understandings presented here.