Reaching Conservative Teachers Regarding Gender and Sexual Diversity in the Wake of Obergefell

This presentation uses a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine how a class of predominantly conservative elementary-level teachers made discursive sense of gender and sexually diverse (GSD) young adult and children’s literature in the context of concurrent, relevant national events, especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. The multiple sources of narrative data, supplemented with quantitative pre- and post-surveys, provide fruitful insights into the past, present, and future of conservative teachers’ attitudes and practices vis-à-vis our society’s fast-changing norms regarding LGBTQ youth and adults. Our findings suggest effective ways to help prepare conservative educators to appropriately address GSD issues while also mapping persistent challenges that are not easily resolved.