Supporting the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity in schools: Auditing Australian education departmental policies

Abstract

While school policies are not a panacea, gender and sexuality diversity-inclusive policies have the potential to relieve educators’ concerns about what they are ‘allowed’ to engage with in respect to GSD inclusivity and to guide their proactive efforts to support gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) students. Unfortunately, policies enabling educators’ proactive, positive support for GSD students are far from systematised in schools across Australia’s eight states and territories. This paper presents an audit of publicly available policy guidance for educators in Australia’s government schools, analysing these against an original evaluative set of best-practice criteria developed from research recommendations from the field of GSD-inclusivity in K-12 schools. Analyses for each state/territory are provided. Results from this audit highlight the unevenness in articulated policy support available to Australian educators and illustrate the criticality of developing Australian federal policy mandates with respect to GSD inclusivity and professional development for educators, including both articulated expectations for the creation/maintenance of a safe and affirming environment as well as pragmatic support for how to create school cultural change.