Our Children Are Your Students

"Goldstein has written a must-read book that offers clear and powerful guidance for supporting LGBTQ students and families...It ought to be in the hands of teacher educators, preservice teachers, and professional development providers; it is that good." (Read the full review in the June 2022, Vol. 59, No. 10 issue of CHOICE magazine.)

H. M. Miller, Mercy College

"Our Children Are Your Students points to the everyday challenges and celebrations of LGBTQ families and children as they navigate their way through the Canadian education system. Incorporating the voices of LGBTQ families who are so often silenced by schools, Tara Goldstein and the LGBTQ Families research team have done a truly wonderful job in bringing their experiences to light. An inspiring, honest, hopeful, sensitive, thought-provoking and beautifully presented book. All teachers, pre-service teachers and teacher educators must read this. In all honesty, I could hardly put it down."

Tania Ferfolja, Associate Professor, School of Education, Centre for Educational Research, Western Sydney University, Australia

"Our Children Are Your Students is part teaching, part research, part art, and 100% devoted to improving the quality of the lives of LGBTQ students and their families. Goldstein (and her fellow authors) have an ear for beautiful words, creating theatre from family testimonies of struggle and joy within our education system. If teachers, professors, and community professionals are serious about following human rights laws for the inclusion of LGBTQ families, they should open up this book. If LGBTQ families want to feel less alone, they can find their loving stories within the pages."

Karleen Pendleton Jiménez, Professor, School of Education, Gender and Social Justice, Trent University, Canada

“From my end, I cannot fail to highlight the originality with which Goldstein presents her most recent academic text. The decision to engage a songwriter to develop lyrics based on the LGBTQ families project . . . makes Goldstein’s scholarship a refreshing and veritable example of critical pedagogy in practice. It also raises awareness that LGBTQ families and students are indeed present at school and that they should be considered in educational practices to bring about what Paulo Freire referred to as the ‘transformation of the world’ (Freire, 2017, p.72). In this respect, Goldstein’s book can be clearly construed as a form of praxis intended to usher a curricular change in the treatment of LGBTQ families within school communities. It is therefore ideal for teachers and school administrators who want to know about the families of LGBTQ children whom they are teaching, as well as assist educators to become their allies so that transgender students are no longer eclipsed from the curriculum.” (Read the full review in the May 2022 issue of the Journal of LGBT Youth.)

Manuel Joseph Ellul, PhD student, Dept. of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto

List of Figures and Images

Acknowledgements

Foreword
Dennis Sumara

Introduction
The Experiences of LGBTQ Families at School

Chapter 1
From Anonymity to Testimony and Autobiography
Tara Goldstein

Chapter 2
This Is Our Family: A Verbatim Theatre Script
Tara Goldstein, Pam Baer, and Jenny Salisbury

Chapter 3
Queering Classrooms and Schools
Katie Reid and Tara Goldstein

Chapter 4
Ethical Principles and Practices for Research with LGBTQ Families: A Living Document
Bishop (formerly Yasmin) Owis and Tara Goldstein

Chapter 5
Naming and Renaming
benjamin lee hicks and Tara Goldstein

Contributors

Index

Tara Goldstein

Tara Goldstein is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Her current teaching and research program focuses on gender, sexuality and schooling, and verbatim theatre research. Her latest book is Teaching Gender and Sexuality at School: Letters to Teachers (2019). Tara is also the Founding and Artistic Director of Gailey Road Productions, a theatre company that produces her performed ethnographies and research-informed theatre.