Abstract
While South African schools and principals are mandated to cater for all learners regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, evidence shows principals being perpetrators of homophobic and transphobic practices because schools uphold gender-binary cultures. This is indicative in school facilities and provisions such as bathrooms, changing rooms, school uniform to mention but a few, that have narrow gender boundaries. Therefore, diverse gender identities (LGBT learners) struggle to fit into these compulsory social contexts as they are not included, nor accommodated by school principals. Despite the strong South African constitutional mandate that foregrounds anti-oppressive practices, principals’ responses to gender diverse learners are largely influenced by socially constructed gender roles and behavioural expectations.
In South Africa, there is minimal research on how principals experience their schools as gender diverse environments, nor is there any research on how schools respond to the needs of gender diverse learners. Hence, there is both a need to understand the lived experiences of gender diverse learners in schools, as well as how schools’ principals as the heads of learning institutions could respond to their needs towards safer, inclusive and socially just spaces. This exploratory qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with five principals who shared their inclusive leadership strategy and disclosed their understanding, experiences and needs towards embracing sexual and gender diversity inclusion in South African public schools.
Using Inclusive Leadership and Social Justice Leadership as a theoretical frame of reference for the research, the study attempts to draw on its qualitative findings regarding principals’ responses to gender identity and sexual orientation and factors that influence this understanding. Through this theoretical framework interface, the study displays how principals either embrace or resist and express their inclusive and social justice agenda given the enabling and constraining complexities of compulsory heteronormative school environments. The findings reveal that compulsory heteronormative school environments do present unfair exclusions, prejudice and learning barriers towards sexual and gender diverse learners. However, principals share positive learning experiences, which ultimately can be considered to improve
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policy development and education practice. Subsequently, the study foregrounds some qualitative data on what principals need to thrive in their inclusive leadership and socially just school environments.