Poststructural Analysis of Anti-LGBTQ + Educational Policies

Abstract

We draw on several critical paradigms, disciplines, and theories to interrogate 13 anti-LGBTQ+ educational policy texts. Using Institutional Theory (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2010; Carpenter & Feroz, 2001) and Poststructural Policy Analysis (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016), we explore how these texts may cause separations between policy and practice, how they construct “teachers” and “students” as subjects and objects of the state, and how they promote cisheteropatriarchy. The terms reactive evasion and identity evasiveness are presented to describe central discursive mechanisms in the texts. The term identity specificity, or the humanizing practices of recognizing diverse identities, is coined as a fundamental component of educational quality. We situate our work as an enunciation of critical resistance within anti-oppressive discourses and assert three main arguments: (a) these dictates will adversely affect educational institutions; (b) a fundamental component of educational quality is identity specificity; and (c) policy not centered on the humanizing testimony of those about whom that policy is generated reinforces oppressive regimes.