Catherine A. Lugg

• Ph.D., M.M.E., M.M., B.M.
• Retired Professor of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

This collection of distinct scholarly essays deliberatively turns to queer experience and theorizing as a resource for constructing vibrant qualitative research designs. Queer theory offers a breadth of epistemological and methodological possibilities for qualitative projects that are too frequently overlooked for many reasons. These reasons includ...

This paper examines the current state of law and policy in relation to US transgender youth and their lived experiences. We approach this from different disciplinary backgrounds, identities, and ways of writing terms related to gender identity. We begin with an examination of the current legal climate in the USA and explore how students have pushed...

In this manuscript, I examine the new Trump administration and its US policy agenda. In particular, I am concerned with the administration’s embrace of unilateralism, imperialism and authoritarianism, supported by White Nationalism and audacious lying. I offer a few things for social justice educators to consider as well as a call for action and ho...

This reflective essay, which is both autobiographical and historical in nature, is framed by answering the questions posed by the editors regarding my work: What values inform it, how I actually do it, and why do I do it? Quite simply, I am writing to encourage social change for all queer people, be it merely the little corner of my own social worl...

This chapter teases out how shifting currents in US educational policy and politics vis-à-vis LGBTQ students conflict by employing a lens from the politics of education literature: street-level bureaucrats. Regardless of the intent of a policy’s authors, how street-level bureaucrats (career civil servants like public educators) define a policy thro...

Queer Theory (QT) and Queer Legal Theory (QLT) provide useful frameworks for Critical Policy Analysis within educational studies. As critical lenses, these theories are particularly attuned to uncovering sites where all forms of oppression, but especially homophobia and heteronormativity, lead to the stigmatization and erasure of queer identities a...

Chapter 4 discusses the state of contemporary queer America and, in light of vastly expanded legal rights, what it may mean for adult queers.

In Chapter 2, the discussion to the 1970s and 1980s, a time when queer identity was de-pathologized by the medical community but then re-pathologized by terrified and opportunistic politicians, jurists and school officials because of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

The 6th and final chapter addresses this legacy of state-sanctioned erasure and what that has meantfor queer children and adults. I then analyze the legacy of anti-queer erasure in U.S. public schools and what might be done to ameliorate this curiously bigoted inheritance.

Chapter 3 examines several key events in the 1990s and 2000s that opened the door for greater queer visibility in public schools, particularly on the behalf of queer students who were willing to be “out” about their identities. I also address the dilemmas that queer educators confronted if they came out or were forcibly “outed.”

Chapter 1 highlights the long hostility towards queer people and information about queers, including sweeping witch-hunts of suspected queer public school personnel from the 1920s through to the 1960s. I also discuss how efforts to offer sexuality education were fraught with political controversy, only some of which was related to sexual orientatio...

This book presents a history of queer erasure in the US public school system, from the 1920s up until today. By focusing on specific events as well as the context in which they occurred, Lugg presents a way forward in improving school policies for both queer youth and queer adults.

This paper discusses employing queer theory (QT) and queer legal theory (QLT) for critical policy analysis as applied to education. In doing so, the authors will highlight how both QT and QLT can empower analyses to look beyond the identity politics of a particular time period or space and toward potential reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and insti...

This review provides a brief synopsis of Stuart Biegel's work that examines the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and educators within the U.S. public school system. Biegel presents a provocative legal analysis of the environments confronting LGBT people who study, work, and play within U.S. public schools.

Challenges of work-life balance in the academy stem from policies and practices which remain from the time when higher education was populated mostly by married White male faculty. Those faculty were successful in their academic work because they depended upon the support of their wives to manage many of the not-work aspects of their lives. Imagine...

Drawing on a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision (2007), this case addresses a school district’s responsibility regarding homophobic bullying, school culture, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students to be free of discrimination.

This theoretical analysis employs a poststructuralist lens to reveal the constructs behind the word fit, an oft used descriptor integral to the discourse of school hiring practices, personnel decisions, and politics. Although the term is a part of the everyday culture of school politics, it is rarely considered with any depth. Using the metaphor of...

In this article, the authors explore issues of identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, educational leadership and leadership preparation. We discuss professional norms, including attire, and in turn how professional norms might construct panopticons, identity and US public school leadership. We conclude by exploring a consciously queer appro...

Contemporary educational leaders should realize that our political system of governance is not particularly democratic in the sense that the people rule. While popular elections occur in the U.S., participation rates by citizens are notoriously low, particularly at the local level. This is a striking rebuke to our founders' notion that the most pop...

C. J. Pascoe's “Dude, You're a Fag” presents the results of a year-long ethnographic study exploring how students construct, regulate, and perform masculinity in one California public high school. The following review presents a brief overview of Pascoe's study and the effects of “compulsive heterosexuality” on LGBT and questioning youth.

Employing the Advocacy Coalition Framework to ground the analysis, this article begins with an historical overview of the US Protestant Right and its involvement with the politics of public schooling. It then moves to a discussion of a few current legal and policy issues (intelligent design, evolution, the Kansas state board of education, school pr...

Currently in his second year as assistant principal, Jack Andrews is facing conflicting pressures of leadership related to his perception of career mobility and the tensions caused by a pervasively heterosexist, sexist, and homophobic culture in his school. This case raises questions regarding the purpose of school in terms of social justice, equal...

In this article, I present a historical overview of the queer rights movement in the United States, from the late 1940s to today, weaving snapshots of my own life into the narrative, from living in the closet to being totally out, both personally and professionally. Because I was closeted at the beginning of my career my research agenda did not ini...

This case presents an educational leader attempting to institute cultural change in a university department that has long been marked by turbulence, turmoil, and trauma. The case examines the well-intentioned efforts of the newly appointed department chair, John Nitsky, in his quest to “reculture” the department.

Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore some of the current tensions within educational administration in the USA and conclude with a few cautions for educators who engage in social justice projects. Design/methodology/approach Using a selective case, this historical essay examines the issues of social justice and equity as they have rel...

Purpose This paper aims to discuss how public school administrators with a social justice perspective have an obligation to permeate society beyond their schools and how they might address the perilous politics associated with advocating social change. Using George Counts' landmark 1932 speech, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? as the conce...

Building principals are confronted with a host of challenges, particularly when serving children who live outside of the stereotypical mainstream. This article, drawn from a larger ethnographic study, examines the leadership behavior of one building principal who was the administrator for a program serving deaf and nondeaf children. Although studen...

A theory and practice of social justice is fraudulent when it does not fully address lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) individuals and their intersections with other identities. Faculty who claim to be concerned with social justice cannot focus on one or perhaps two areas of difference while ignoring or giving short shrift to the others. Afte...

This article explores the status of U.S. public school educators both queer and non-queer who have historically resided at the intersection of sodomy laws and professional norms including licensure, morality clauses, and professional socialization. Employing Foucault’s notion of panopticism, the author examines how sodomy laws and professional norm...

Social justice: Seeking a common language Since the late 1980s, interest in social justice issues has increased among scholars in educational leadership preparation programs across the country. As recently as 5 years ago, Anderson (2002) noted, social justice and equity issues rarely appeared in the literature associated with educational leadership...

For American public schools, the interplay between religion and public policy has been rather volatile, thanks to both state and federal constitutions mandating an ever shifting degree of separation between church and state, yet permitting free religious expression. Some of the most intense political disputes in the past 40 years have involved educ...

This article seeks to chart a course through the contested areas of gender and sexual orientation in hopes of establishing a theoretical framework and an agenda for much needed future research. In building this article, the author draws from two research traditions, particularly in the areas of history and law. Her stance is that of a critical poli...

Drawing upon queer legal theory, historical policy analysis, and social, legal, and educational history, explores the legal foundations and maintenance of what is described as the assimilationist imperative for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered administrators working in public schools. (Contains 81 references and 12 case law citations.) (Au...

This article provides an overview to this special issue on interest groups and the politics of education. It first maps out the conceptual terrain by discussing educational interest groups and defining interest groups in American politics. This article then concludes with a brief discussion of the issues to be explored in greater depth in the indiv...

This article explores the belief structure and educational agenda of the Christian Right using a case study as a point of departure. In addition, the Christian Right is examined as a cultivated collection of interest groups and the Christian Right's historic membership is discussed. Finally, the article explores the Christian Right's future prospec...

This article analyzes the rise of PRolicy (Public Relations public policy), as it relates to educational policy, by examining the first Reagan administration and its use of media manipulation to shape public perceptions of its educational policy agendas. The article explores how PRolicy shapes both educational policy and strengthens borders and use...

The U.S. Christian Right has been involved with the politics of education since its inception in the 1970s. This involvement has been greatly influenced by a theological justification of political activism, Christian Reconstructionism. Subsequently, much of the activity by the Christian Right involving public education tends to fall into two catego...

This presentation takes an historical approach to homosexuality and homophobia in public schools. The methodology of "history from below" is applied. Methodological considerations are discussed, and experiences of gay and lesbian teachers and students are explored. The psychological, moral and political meanings various groups attach to homosexuali...

Discontent with public education has been on the rise in recent years, as parents complain that their children are not being taught the basics, that they are not pushed to excel, and that their classrooms are too chaotic to encourage any real learning. The public has begun to reject school bond levies with regularity, frustrated by what it perceive...

With the political rise of the U.S. Religious Right, public educators, administrators, and policy makers have faced numerous charges that public schools promote homosexuality. These charges have been made regardless of the actual content of various programs and curricula. Nevertheless, the typically incendiary charges seem an effective political to...

This paper explores "political kitsch," a propaganda that incorporates familiar and easily understood art forms to shape the direction of public policy. Kitsch differs from art in that it is a powerful political construction designed to colonize the receiver's consciousness. It reassures and comforts the receiver through the exploitation of cultura...

Coordinated social services may be one of the most promising aspects of the current era of systemic educational reform. However, moving from a policy that calls for coordinated service integration into the actual practice of providing services requires the resolution of a host of complex, interacting issues. This paper provides an overview of what...