As we celebrate Pride Month, supporting LGBTQ+ young people and families is essential. Inclusivity in education plays a critical role for all children, especially in the hostile environment created by discriminatory laws and censorship policies that threaten to erase LGBTQ+ identities and roll back the gains of recent years. Our resource page shares our articles and content on supporting LGBTQ+ people, including information on inclusive education practices and allyship, and provides links to external resources.
School hardening policies—such as the presence of police and security, metal detectors, and harsh discipline codes—contribute to a criminalization culture in schools and students being pushed out of classrooms and into the school-to-prison pipeline. For Black girls, this criminalization culture causes serious additional harms.
The tools for inquiry and dialogue are crucial if we are to build a just and thriving society. As professor of education Gregory M. Anderson points out: “Democracy cannot be sustained, let alone flourish, in the 21st century without open and robust spaces for rational discussion and analysis about our different experiences and viewpoints. This is an essential reason why inclusive education is crucial to our basic self-interests and our collective success.