than any other learners (Goodenow et al., 2006). These learners felt that they did not have an adult at school whom they could confide in and trust, thus felt hopeless and powerless.
The above responses from teachers at Ladybug Primary School varied in terms of their opinions of whether gender, sex and sexuality education should be incorporated within the existing Life Skills curriculum. For those teachers who agreed with its implementation, their opinions were fragmented on agreement of which grade level and age group they deemed appropriate for such education. According to Smith and Payne (2016, p. 36), “Gender and sexuality are relevant to how children experience school, and they are topics to be discussed in the school setting.” The authors further state that sexuality is a natural and already existing part of all elementary (primary) school children’s (from Grade R to 7) lives, thus should be discussed openly (Smith
& Payne, 2016). In this way, the explicit and implicit school culture of heteronormativity, homophobia, gender and sexual hierarchies and hegemonies can be disrupted, and inclusivity can slowly be implemented (Francis, 2019; Simpson, 2020). Despite a difference in opinion on the incorporation of gender, sex, and sexuality education in the curriculum, almost all the teacher participants stated that a need for training and workshops on how to effectively interact and manage counter-normative sexualities in the classroom.
7.3 Teachers Need for Support and Training when Managing Non-conforming Sexual
Vee [36 yr. old Coloured female, SP teacher]: To be honest my immediate reaction would be that I’m not qualified to do this, but teachers are placed in a very difficult drill where they have to be often both parent and teacher.
The teachers’ responses of Ladybug Primary school above show that they feel an inadequacy in themselves as teachers when presented with a situation in which they need to advise and guide a gender and sexually diverse learner. Dr X and Zama’s responses indicate that they are not qualified or trained as teachers to be able to give the “right” advice to learners like Thandi and might do more harm in the situation. According to Smith and Payne (2016) and Francis (2019), teachers internationally and locally, are ill-equipped when it comes to dealing with gender, sex, and sexually diverse learners. Moreover, teachers have extraordinarily little ability to help and guide such learners due to their own pedagogies and beliefs that place heteronormativity and the gender binary as the “norm” in schools (Sullivan, 2019). When teachers were asked if they had received any training, modules, or courses on management of gender and sex diverse learners in college or university, all 30 participants replied that they had not. When questioned further about the implementation of workshops or courses made available to them through the management of Ladybug Primary School, majority of participants answered in the negative. Grace’s response, which is similar to the other 29 participants’
responses, sums this up effectively:
Researcher: When you were training to become a teacher - when you attend teacher training, college, university, varsity whatever it was. Did you have a module or course where you were taught how to deal with such issues? Did you have any support from wherever you trained at?
Grace [44 yr. old White female, grade 5 teacher]: No.
Researcher: Nothing at all?
Grace: Nothing.
Researcher: And any of the other schools you’ve taught at? Nothing at this school?
Grace: No. Basically bullying and molesting and things like that but never to do with LGBTQI+.
In America, teachers similarly feel inadequate when confronted with issues on LGBTQI+.
According to Jennings and Sherwin (2008) in the study by Smith and Payne (2016, p. 38)
“Unfortunately, LGBTQ identities are often absent from teacher education curriculum, and when they are addressed, instructors often rely on deficit discourses that focus the need for change on the youth themselves instead of on structural inequalities that create the need for therapeutic intervention or anti-bullying programs”. The authors further state, that although some teachers recognise a need for courses that equip them with the necessary tools, these courses are often centred around ways in which to help those divergent learners find their way back to the “most insidious forms of heterosexism” and not on multicultural education” (Gorski et al., 2013, p. 238).
In South Africa, there is a legitimate concern about how teachers are trained when it comes to teaching learners about gender, sex, and sexual diversity (Francis, 2019). In his study, Francis (2019) cites that a study conducted by (Johnson, 2014) reported that in three South African teacher-training programmes, issues pertaining to LGB topics were purposefully left out of the curriculum (Johnson, 2014; Francis, 2019). “As a result, pre-service teachers are ‘ill-prepared’
to teach about gender and sexuality diversity.” (Francis, 2019, p. 13). Further, in- service teachers felt uncomfortable and inadequately prepared when questioned on teacher sex and sexuality diversity to learners (Francis, 2019). Drawing on the findings of these studies, it is clear to see that there is a need for both pre-and in-service teachers to be given the opportunity to learn and develop skills that deal with gender, sex, and sexuality diversity (Bhana, 2012;
Francis, 2019). Teachers at Ladybug Primary school seemed to echo these sentiments:
Researcher: So that would be your recommendation? In other words, what do you think is needed in the school to give more support to the teachers? What would be beneficial to them when it comes to issues like dealing with and managing learners such as Thandi?
Vee: I think workshops are the best place to start…. For all the teachers, I would say.
Maybe not so much for junior primary. More for senior primary and maybe one specific teacher in junior primary. One teacher that you know is open to things like this so that if there is a case like a 6-year-old that has started this then there’s at least somebody there that the child can speak to.
Mrs. Zee [28 yr. old White female, grade 1 teacher]: Mm, maybe some sort of training.
I’m just more on talking underneath each other and asking them like the question you ask me, how are you going to address it or how are you going to handle it and what is your response going to be for that girl that wants to be the boy, whatever you said. To more talk about it in a group like the foundation phase and also in the foundation phase talk to the intermediate phase. And ask them how is their reaction and you can think about your own reaction, think maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, let's rather do this as a school. Be a unit when it when it comes to some, well very serious things like this.
Because this is really serious things yeah.
Vee and Mrs. Zee’s responses show that teachers recognise and accept that they need support in terms of by training and workshops. They feel that they are not prepared enough to manage and respond to sex and gender diverse learners, in the way that would benefit these learners.
Internationally, Cates (2019) states that research within some states in the United States of America had begun exploring how individual schools and teachers might better serve diverse students. Findings reveal that a multicultural educational approach is needed, and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), have emerged to inform teacher training and practice (Cates, 2019). Vavrus (2008, p. 49) defines CRT as “an educational reform that challenges schooling norms which are primarily centred around meeting the needs of white, middle-class, cisgender students.” Through purposeful recognition and inclusion of the perspectives of diverse students, Vavrus (2008, p. 49) proposes that CRT provides, “mainstream knowledge through different techniques, but it also involves transforming the actual perspectives, knowledge base, and approaches of a conventional classroom’s curriculum and instruction.”
In South Africa, Francis (2019, p. 13) states “Both pre-and in-service teachers require opportunities to reflect on and trouble their own positionalities with respect to gender and sexuality diversity so as to address how power, difference and discourse operate at both the level of teaching and learning and more broadly within society”.