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Education, religion, and LGBTQ+ in Australia
Abstract
This paper examines the religiosity, sexuality, and attitudes towards same-sex relationships among young people who were students at religiously affiliated schools in Australia and the staff who work in these schools, drawing on a national representative survey. It demonstrates that students are increasingly nonreligious, and accepting of alternatively sexualities, and increasingly identify as lesbian, gay, and bisexual. The religiosity of staff has changed less, but teachers have become increasingly accepting of alternative sexualities. These changes are important because they present a very different picture of religiously affiliated education to that portrayed by the conservative religious authorities who shape the policies and practices in these schools. Conservative Christian church leaders are using discursive practices of religious freedom to support governmental techniques and institutional privilege within religiously affiliated educational contexts to constitute conservative sexual subjectivities among the general Australian public who work in and attend these schools.
Despite being identified as a priority population in various state and national strategies, LGBTIQA+ people experience elevated health risks due to experiences of discrimination, stigma, and exclusion. While regular engagement with primary health care (PHC) is acknowledged as a determinant of general health, the provision of services in a culturally safe and appropriate way, is imperative to optimise LGBTIQA+ health outcomes. LGBTIQA+ community-controlled organisations play a crucial role in providing essential services and demonstrate utility in supporting health outcomes for LGBTIQA+ people. However, in Western Australia (WA), the limited presence and funding of LGBTIQA+ community-controlled organisations exacerbate reliance on mainstream PHC services where reports of insufficient acknowledgement of and respect for diverse sexualities, genders and sex characteristics prevail. This study sought to better understand the existing primary health care services available for LGBTIQA+ people in Western Australia (WA) to provide recommendations for addressing gaps and improving services and policy.
This article argues that the focus on the harm and stigma experienced by LGBTQ+ Christians misrepresents the complexity of the experience of many LGBTQ+ Christians, many of whom report affirmation and self-acceptance. A national representative survey indicates 5.5% of all Australians, 2.9% of Christians, and 8.4% of those with no religion identify their sexuality as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or ‘other’. LGB+ Christians appear to be distributed through all large Christian denominations. A second non-random national online survey indicates that many LGBTQ+ Christians report both self-acceptance and acceptance in their Christian community. While many LGBTQ+ Christians experience significant discrimination in Christian contexts, the often reported incompatibility of Christianity with LGBTQ+ sexual and gender identities is only one part of the story. There are significant sectors of Australian Christianity that are welcoming of LGBTQ+ people. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ people who remain Christians are often deeply committed to their faith.
Australian religious conservatives continue to argue that religiously affiliated schools should be able to discriminate based on the sexuality and/or gender identity of students. We argue that this discussion fails to adequately consider the serious harms that discrimination against LGBTQ+ educators has on LGBTQ+ and questioning students. The article uses data from an Australian qualitative study examining the experience of LGBTQ+ educators in religiously affiliated organisations. We describe how heteronormative/cisnormative discourses and discriminatory practices toward LGBTQ+ educators have a direct negative impact on LGBTQ+ students. Even in relatively inclusive schools, the heteronormative and cisnormative climate of the schools is damaging, not only for educators but also for LGBTQ+ students. These serious harms need to be given greater consideration in evaluating the arguments for discriminatory practices in religiously affiliated schools funded by the government to provide education to the general Australian population.
The bullying of sexual and/or gender minority youth at school is a social violence issue that is ubiquitous in most countries. In line with evidence-based practice, teachers are consistently shown to be a critical component of success when addressing this issue; however, teachers’ preparedness to respond to sexual and/or gender motivated bullying is under researched. Utilizing components of the theory of planned behavior, a sample of 437 Australian teachers were investigated to determine whether knowledge, perceived barriers, and attitudes toward both sexual and/or gender minorities predicted teachers’ intentions to intervene when a sexual and/or gender minority student is bullied above and beyond sociodemographic factors associated with prejudice. Results of hierarchical linear regression demonstrated that teachers with more positive views of gender minorities and less traditional views related to gender ideologies were more likely to endorse higher intentions to intervene in sexual and/or gender minority motivated bullying. Findings suggested teachers’ attitudinal biases inform their professional practices when a sexual and/or gender minority student is bullied.
This article examines the role of anti-discrimination legislation in the negotiation of religious difference in the Australian state of Victoria. We argue for the importance of a relational conceptualisation of the negotiation of religious diversity that draws on concepts of etiquette and limitations, deep equality, and substantive equality. The Victorian legislation allows the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to ‘mediate’ the relationships between the people and groups that come before it. VCAT mediates relationships in three ways: 1. Providing a forum for constructive intervention in cases of problematic tension between groups, and in doing so facilitating the development of an ‘etiquette’ for the negotiation of power dynamics, typically between (historically) empowered and disempowered groups in Australia. 2. Providing a forum for making transparent examples of latent and covert discrimination and exclusion, encouraging participants to engage in reflection upon potential future courses of action. 3. The provision (or refusal) of exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act, providing guidance about the management of religious difference in the public sphere.
This report offers a multi-faceted analysis of verified incidents reported
to the Islamophobia Register Australia by victims, proxies and witnesses
in the two-year period of 2016-2017. It is a continuation of the first
Islamophobia in Australia Report published in 2017.
Of the 551 incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register
Australia for the two-year period, 349 incidents were verifed and
included in the report.
The large chunk of discarded incidents
included deliberate fake reporting by some Islamophobes, who
aimed to undermine the Register’s authentic data. Some cases
were also omitted because verification was not possible. After
the data was cleaned and coded, SPSS (Statistical Package for
Social Sciences) descriptive analysis was employed to quantify the
findings. In addition, data-mining techniques were used to discover
some meaningful patterns and predict future possibilities.
This article reports on students’ and faculty members’ experience of their pluralistic Jewish day school’s educational mission to nurture students’ Jewish identity exploration within a broader social and cultural world. It articulates these stakeholders’ perceptions of the ways teaching and learning of Jewish values, customs, and knowledge are integrated into the formal and informal educational experiences. Furthermore, it identifies five key features that contribute, mainly positively, to students’ exploration of a broader Jewish, Australian, and global identity formation. It argues that a close alignment between stakeholders’ personal views and beliefs and their experience of the school's implemented educational mission, is a major contributing factor in stakeholder satisfaction with Jewish day school education.
While little is known about parental beliefs and desires regarding LGBTQ-inclusive education, assumptions about these appear to justify teachers', curriculum writers' and policy makers' silences regarding sexuality and gender diversity in the K-12 classroom. Thus, in order to better inform educators' practices, this paper presents an analysis of interview data from focus groups with parents from across the Australian state of New South Wales. The analysis was conceptually guided by the concepts of the "null curriculum" (Eisner, 2002) and "illocutionary silencing" (Saunston, 2013) as applied to understandings - both the authors' and participating parents' - of the departmental educational resources. Findings highlight parents' desires for LGBTQ-inclusivity, not only as a protective factor for sexuality and gender diverse students, but also to engender social cohesion and prepare all students for adult life in the modern social landscape. Parents struggled with the complexities of promoting positive social values through compulsory content while simultaneously respecting diverse sets of values and parents' rights to frame such topics according to a private set of beliefs. Furthermore, parents advocated for teacher training in this area and were eager for teachers and school leadership staffto feel departmentally-supported to enact LGBTQinclusive practices.
Education is state-run in Australia, and within each of the eight states and territories there are both government and independent schooling systems. This paper details the position of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) students within Australian education policy documents nationally, focusing on the three largest states and educational sectors in Australia. Survey data are used to report on the schooling experiences of over 3000 Australian GLBTIQ young people aged 14–21 years. Data from interviews with key policy informants identify both the obstacles to implementing policies, and how such obstacles have been overcome. Much official policy sees sexuality education as promoting inclusive, protective and affirming messages around GLBTIQ students. There exist significant correlations between policy and a variety of well-being and psycho-social outcomes for GLBTIQ students, including lowered incidence of homophobic abuse and suicide, and the creation of supportive school environments. Ideal policy visions are outlined, along with practical recommendations of relevance to a variety of stakeholders.
Purpose
The paper aims to argue that there has been a privileging of the private (social mobility) and economic (social efficiency) purposes of schooling at the expense of the public (democratic equality) purposes of schooling.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a literature review, policy and document analysis.
Findings
Since the late 1980s, the schooling agenda in Australia has been narrowed to one that gives primacy to purposes of schooling that highlight economic orientations (social efficiency) and private purposes (social mobility).
Practical implications
The findings have wider relevance beyond Australia, as similar policy agendas are evident in many other countries raising the question as to how the shift in purposes of education in those countries might mirror those in Australia.
Originality/value
While earlier writers have examined schooling policies in Australia and noted the implications of managerialism in relation to these policies, no study has analysed these policies from the perspective of the purposes of schooling. Conceptualising schooling, and its purposes in particular, in this way refocuses attention on how societies use their educational systems to promote (or otherwise) the public good.
Beginning with the progressive government of Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s, Australia has embraced policies of multiculturalism and, more recently, social inclusion. With the conservative government of John Howard in the late 1990s, federal governments have fostered a rapid expansion of religious schools, heavily subsidised by taxpayers. Justifications have included the need to promote ‘values’ in the school system and the need to increase ‘choice’ and ‘diversity’. The new religious schools’ proliferation raises tangled questions of culture, religion, ethnicity and class. The extent to which the schools promote inclusion and foster diversity depends on several factors, including what kind of religion the schools present and how the schools understand their educational and cultural responsibilities in relation to the wider society and the state.
Introduction
Discrimination has been under-examined as a social determinant of the higher rates of poor mental health experienced by sexual minorities. The objectives of our study were to: 1) assess whether discrimination was independently associated with poor mental health among sexual minority males, and 2) assess the potential mediation role of discrimination in the associations between sexual minority status and poor mental health.
Methods
We used cross-sectional data on 13,230 males aged 18–55 years from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health; bisexual and homosexual males comprised 1.5% and 1.6% of the sample, respectively. We fit Poisson regression and zero-inflated negative binomial regression models to examine suicidality, depressive symptoms and perceived discrimination in the past two years as correlates of suicidality and depressive symptoms.
Results
Statistically significant differences were observed in the prevalence of perceived discrimination by sexual orientation (p < 0.001), with the highest prevalence among bisexual (29.3%) and homosexual (40.4%) males, and the lowest prevalence among heterosexual males (18.6%). After adjusting for confounding, bisexual/homosexual males had higher rates of perceived discrimination (IRR = 1.88, p < 0.001), recent suicidal ideation (IRR = 1.51, p = 0.008), lifetime suicide attempt (IRR = 2.09, p < 0.001) and recent depressive symptoms (IRR = 1.34, p < 0.001) than heterosexual males. Analysis of β-coefficients suggested that discrimination may mediate a small to moderate proportion of the association between sexual minority status and poor mental health.
Limitations
Use of cross-sectional data.
Conclusion
Poor mental health is more common among sexual minority males, and discrimination may be a contributor to these mental health disparities. Reducing discrimination should be considered as part of a strategy to improve the mental wellbeing of sexual minority males.
Inclusive school environments have been shown to improve educational outcomes, retention, mental health and overall wellbeing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Anti-bullying approaches have been common strategies used in schools to promote safety for all students, yet a well-established critique among scholars and educators suggests such approaches by themselves are insufficient. Little research exists investigating the spatial aspects of forming LGBTQ-inclusive school cultures. This article reports on an Australian study exploring teachers’ and school staff understandings of how space influences inclusion and how they negotiateed or established ‘safe spaces’ for LGBTQ students. Drawing on the work of Edward Soja, we explored how participants constituted safety in conceived and perceived spaces, and how this informed the ways in which physical environments were established in the lived space to promote inclusion. We reveal the role of physical, discursive and curriculum spaces in everyday schooling activities and practices to promote LGBTQ inclusion.
Religiously affiliated schools employ a substantial portion of the Australian educational workforce. These religiously affiliated schools are exempt from Australian state‐based anti‐discrimination legislation in varying degrees. This can have a devastating effect on LGBT+ employees. While NSW has broad exemptions to anti‐discrimination legislation, in contrast Tasmanian anti‐discrimination legislation provides very limited exemptions. This paper examines and compares the experiences of ten LGBT+ teachers employed in religiously affiliated schools in Tasmania and New South Wales. The aim of this paper is to document the differing experiences of these LGBT+ teachers, examining whether the distinctive state‐based legislation has an impact on their lives. The small number of cases examined here suggests that the state difference in anti‐discrimination legislation has a significant impact on LGBT+ peoples’ job security and career development.
What does it mean to grow up as an evangelical Christian today? What meanings does ‘childhood’ have for evangelical adults? How does this shape their engagements with children and with schools? And what does this mean for the everyday realities of children’s lives? Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in three contrasting evangelical churches in the UK, Anna Strhan reveals how attending to the significance of children within evangelicalism deepens understanding of evangelicals’ hopes, fears, and concerns, not only for children, but for wider British society. Developing a relational approach to the study of children and religion, the book invites us to consider the complexities of children’s agency and how the figure of the child shapes the hopes, fears, and imaginations of adults, within and beyond evangelicalism. Strhan explores the lived realities of how evangelicals engage with children across church, school, home, and other informal educational spaces in a dechristianizing cultural context, and how children experience these forms of engagement. The book reveals how conservative evangelicals experience their understanding of childhood as increasingly countercultural, while charismatic and open evangelicals locate their work with children as a significant means of engaging with wider secular society. Setting out an approach that explores the relations between the figure of the child, children’s experiences, and how adult religious subjectivities are formed in both imagined and practical relationships with children, Strhan situates childhood as an important area of study within the sociology of religion and examines how we should approach childhood within this field.
Australia’s education landscape is almost unique among developed nations in having a high proportion of students taught at non-government schools by a diverse range of religious providers, which receive relatively high levels of government funding. It therefore offers the ideal setting for a study on the outcomes achieved by students at schools administered by the major faith providers relative to their peers in government institutions. We take advantage of a six-year panel of nationwide academic test data, along with a comprehensive suite of control variables, to test whether there are differences in average school performance. We find strong evidence to suggest that significant differences in achievement exist between various faith-based providers that cannot be explained solely with reference to educational advantage and prior performance.
At a time when the faith-based identity of schools is facing serious challenges, the researchers undertook a longitudinal study of the relevant opinions, beliefs and values of student-teachers at a Catholic university campus in Australia. The focus of the current paper is on the responses of first-year students to a survey regarding their choice of secondary school, the purposes of schooling and the characteristics of Catholic schools. Relevant context are addressed including global education trends, the values and characteristics of Catholic education and relevant aspects of Australian schooling and youth culture. Regardless of religious affiliation, self-reported religiosity or type of school attended, providing a ‘safe and caring school environment’ emerged as the most important purpose of schooling and as a key reason for choice of school, while faith-based purposes and reasons received particularly low ratings. ‘Caring community’ was regarded as by far the most important characteristic of the Catholic school, followed by engagement in social justice programmes. The findings are briefly compared with parallel findings for teachers in Queensland Catholic schools.
Schooling can be a pivotal time in young people’s formative experience when identities are negotiated and forged. However, contradictory dominant cultures can operate within the school context, making it very challenging for individuals to negotiate their religious and sexual identities within a sexualised and heteronormative space. This essay draws on interview data relating to 18- to 25-year-olds of diverse religious faiths in the UK, who recounted their secondary schooling experiences, and focuses on the formal and informal ways in which the school was constituted in relation to religion and sexuality.
Abstract The aim of this article is to review the Australian literature about suicidality in minority sexual identity and/or behavior groups in order to determine the evidence base for their reported higher vulnerability to suicidal behaviors than heterosexual and non-transgendered individuals in the Australian context, as well as to identify the factors which are predictive of suicidal behaviors in these groups in Australia. A literature search for all available years (until the end of 2012) was conducted using the databases Scopus, Medline, and Proquest for articles published in English in peer-reviewed academic journals. All peer-reviewed publications that provided empirical evidence for prevalence and predictive factors of suicidal behaviors among LGBTI individuals (or a subset thereof) in Australia were included. Reference lists were also scrutinized to identify "gray" literature for inclusion. The results revealed that there is only limited research from Australia. Nevertheless, although no population-based studies have been carried out, research indicates that sexual minorities are indeed at a higher risk for suicidal behaviors. In order to further the understanding of suicidal behaviors and potential prevention among LGBT groups in the Australia, further research is needed, particularly on fatal suicidal behaviors.
In Australia's public schools, students are now routinely exposed to evangelism from very conservative Christian groups. Marion Maddox uncovers the surprising impact of these groups on once secular public schooling, and the ways in which governments have been persuaded to support their cause.
Description
Fewer Australians now practise a religion or believe in God than ever. Yet our governments increasingly push conservative Christianity on our children.
Nearly forty per cent of secondary students attend a private school, which are overwhelmingly Christian. Canberra funds them heavily, and sends evangelical Christian chaplains into both public and private schools. Some states subsidise Christian volunteers to deliver religious instruction, and some make Christian ministry a matriculation subject.
Some Christian schools promote Creationism, and some advertise that their first priority is training 'soldiers' to 'do battle for the Lord in a world which rejects His laws and dominion', rather than good citizens of Australia.
Marion Maddox demonstrates that our governments are systematically demolishing the once proud free, compulsory and secular education system, in favour of taxpayer-funded dogma and division. The implications are unsettling for our society and for our democracy.
'If you believe education is about teaching children how to think, not what to think, then this chilling book is a must read.' - Jane Caro, social commentator and co-author of What Makes a Good School?
'This deeply disturbing book tells how Australia's 'noble dream' of public education in the 19th century has been undermined by a combination of selfish political vote- buying, judicial abdication and public indifference.' - The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG
Marion Maddox is a Professor of Politics at Macquarie University. With PhDs in theology and in politics, she is author of the pathbreaking God Under Howard, and is a product of both public and private schools.
This article, based on the author's doctoral research, examines the ways in which some religious schools in New South Wales (NSW), via institutional practices, maintain and perpetuate discrimination in relation to lesbian teachers and lesbian sexualities. These institutional practices, which included threats of dismissal, forced resignations, implicit harassment, monitoring and surveillance, curriculum silences, and censorship, silence lesbian sexualities and impact the teacher's daily operations and freedom of speech. Vicarious witnessing of these forms of punishment (in the Foucauldian sense) further ensures the silencing of lesbian identities. Moreover, statewide anti-discrimination legislation, which excludes some private institutions from compliance in the area of sexuality, serves to reinforce discriminatory practices, and ultimately silenced the various violence perpetuated against many of the participants in this research.
Lesbians and gay men have historically been derided, harassed, silenced and made invisible in Australia. This prejudice and discrimination has been reinforced structurally through social, cultural and political institutions. Although sexual orientation is now included in state and territory anti-discrimination legislation, and recent federal legislative change supports greater parity with the rights of heterosexuals, there is still discrimination towards lesbians and gay men. This paper examines some of the ways that lesbians' and gay male subjectivities are discursively constructed in modern-day Australia. It then reviews the ongoing negative and complex effects of such discourses on same-sex-attracted individuals in schools, schooling cultures and teacher pedagogies. This provides the background for a review of New South Wales Government education policy on ‘homosexuality’ and argues that this policy ultimately reinforces unhelpful discourses about sexual diversity, and fails to reflect the complexities and fluidities of sexual identities. Although policy implementation in schools in itself can be complex, strong and visible support ‘from the top’ in the form of relevant policy is critical to foster widespread action, understanding and cultural change in schools.
This paper compares patterns of private school attendance in the UK and Australia. About 6.5% of school children in the UK attend a private school, while 33% do so in Australia. We use comparable household panel data from the two countries to model attendance at a private school at age 15 or 16 as a function of household income and other child and parental characteristics. As one might expect, we observe a strong effect of household income on private school attendance. The addition of other household characteristics reduces this income elasticity, and reveals a strong degree of intergenerational transmission in both countries, with children being 8 percentage points more likely to attend a private school if one of their parents attended one in the UK, and anywhere up to 20 percentage points more likely in Australia. The analysis also reveals significant effects of parental education level, political preferences, religious background and the number of siblings on private school attendance.
There is much debate surrounding the application of exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation for religious schools. This article seeks to discover the views of a wide cross-section of religious schools, and organisations which play a role in administering or guiding those schools, with regard to the current state of anti-discrimination laws in Australia. It presents a number of different views on anti-discrimination laws and examines how these attitudes affect policy and decision-making processes in religious schools. The article contributes to the current debate by demonstrating that there is no single cohesive viewpoint held by the religious schools sector. Rather, the sector is shown to be a highly heterogeneous one.
This article examines extent to which Australian religious schools should be exempt from non-discrimination laws that apply to other schools. Religious schools are common in Australia and attract significant government funding. The question of the extent to which they must comply with discrimination law is therefore a significant issue of public policy that impacts on the education of a substantial portion of Australian children and the employment opportunities of teachers and other school employees. The first section of the article outlines some of the types of discrimination which religious schools may wish to engage in; the second discusses some arguments for and against permitting such discrimination. The third section examines the way in which the laws and practices in various Australian jurisdictions allow religious schools to engage in particular forms of discrimination. The article concludes by arguing that some degree of permissible discrimination may be necessary to assist religious schools to maintain their distinctive character, but that wide exemptions to discrimination laws (such as those seen in some Australian States) are not appropriate.
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