Language, Sexuality and Education

3 Using Sociolinguistic Frameworks to Explore the School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth The data presented in this chapter consist of interviews with 20 young LGBT+ identified people (aged 13–25) who attend or have recently attended schools and colleges in the UK cities which are the research sites for this book. In the interviews, the young people reflect on their experiences of, and attitudes towards, school in relation to their LGBT+ sexual identities. The young people were identified through their membership of LGBT+ youth groups. This was the most practical way of accessing openly LGBT+ young people for the research and it had the advantage of providing a context in which the young people felt comfortable talking about their school experiences. All interviews were individual and were semi-structured to allow for a degree of flexibility. They lasted between 20 and 40 minutes. The same set of questions was used in each interview, although there was flexibility for interviewees to discuss other related points if they wanted to. The questions focused on interviewees’ perceptions of sexual diversity issues in school. Due to the potentially sensitive topic of discussion, the youth workers who ran the groups were present in the interviews. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in full. Brief information about each of the participants is included in Table 3.1. The interviews themselves contain sequences of narrative in which the participants narrate their experiences of being LGBT+ in relation to school. In this sense, this aspect of the research is based within a qualitative, narrative inquiry approach. Clandinin and Connelly (2000: 20) define narrative inquiry as ‘a way of understanding experience’. In this chapter, the participants use narratives within the interviews to reflect on and understand their own experiences of sexuality and schooling. Through the telling of narratives in an interview situation, participants construct identities for themselves and others through the language used in these narratives. De Fina and Perrino (2011) are critical of how narrative interviews are sometimes viewed as ‘inauthentic’ linguistic data. They describe research interviews as being a ‘legitimate interactional encounter’ (2011: 1) and argue from this that the language produced in narrative interviews is just as rich and authentic for sociolinguistic analysis as language collected from other situations. In fact, in some situations, they 50 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth 51 Table 3.1 Participant information Name (pseudonym if requested) Age (at time of interview) Alex Amy 18 22 Carl 18 Fay 18 Hannah 17 Jack 17 John 16 Martin 18 Tad 18 Todd 16 Josh 17 Dan 15 Types of school/s and college/s attended 11–18 mixed-sex comprehensive 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive Left school aged 12 to be home-educated after being persistently bullied at school Currently self-employed 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive Attended sixth form college but dropped out after a few months Currently unemployed Attended 11–16 mixed-sex school but left because of being bullied Attended a ‘half way’ school for a period of a few months Attended another 11–18 mixed-sex comprehensive school Currently in the sixth form of the last 11–18 school attended 11–18 single-sex girls’ school Currently attending the school’s sixth form 11–16 mixed-sex faith school (Catholic) Currently attending sixth form college 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive (with some periods of home education following bouts of bullying at school) Currently attending sixth form college 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive Sixth form college – dropped out after a few months Currently completing IT apprenticeship Several 11–16 comprehensive schools (including a period at a school for students who have been bullied and who have special educational needs) followed by sixth form college Currently attending sixth form college 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive Currently attending sixth form college 11–18 single-sex boarding school. Currently in Year 12. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Currently in Year 10. Sexual orientation and gender identity1 Gay man Lesbian woman Gay man Bisexual woman Lesbian woman Gay man Gay man Gay man Gay man Gay man Gay man Bisexual man Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 52 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Table 3.1 (cont.) Name (pseudonym if requested) Age (at time of interview) Ruby 17 Charlie 16 Steven Jason Ashford Nikki 14 15 15 25 Abby 18 Ashley 20 1 Types of school/s and college/s attended 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. About to start attending sixth form college. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Just completed Year 11. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Year 9. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Year 10. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Year 10. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Employed. 11–16 mixed-sex comprehensive. Sixth form college (just completed). 11–18 single-sex boys’ independent. Sexual orientation and gender identity1 Prefer not to say Bisexual man Gay man Bisexual man Trans asexual Lesbian woman Prefers no label Queer, demi-sexual, gender queer. Uses female pronouns. Participants defined their own sexual orientation and gender identities. may yield more authentic data and they may afford participants a space for talking about issues or topics that they may consider too taboo, taken for granted or silenced in more everyday contexts. As Modan and Shuman (2011: 14) state ‘interviews afford tellability that may be otherwise restricted’. Narrative interviews are thus seen as real interactional events in their own right – in narrative interviews such as those used in this research, participants are not simply reflecting on the language practices they use elsewhere, they are simultaneously engaged in language practices which contribute to the sociolinguistic construction of identity. The interview data in this chapter therefore does not provide direct evidence of institutional school practices (unlike Chapter 6), but contains young people’s accounts of how they have perceived and experienced those practices, how they are meaningful to them, and how they feel those experiences have contributed to the construction of their sexual identities. Tactics of Intersubjectivity (ToI): Framework Using the tactics of intersubjectivity framework (Bucholtz and Hall, 2004, 2005), the language used by the young people in the interviews was analyzed in order to provide insights into how the participants understand and construct their sexual identities in relation to school. The application of the framework enables a consideration of how the young people use language to construct Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity (ToI): Framework 53 their sexual identity in relation to aspects of schooling (such as the curriculum, anti-bullying policies and practices and the school environment), with a specific focus on how they perceive school practices as enabling or constraining particular enactments of their sexual identity. The framework offers deeper insights into sexuality and education than can be gained from thematic analysis alone, and can contribute towards developing understandings of sexual diversity issues in schools. Bucholtz and Hall’s (2004, 2005) ‘tactics of intersubjectivity’ is a sociocultural linguistics framework which was conceived specifically with gender and sexual identities in mind and offers a revealing framework for the analysis of the relationship between identity and language. The framework has been very influential in the study of language and sexuality and has made a significant contribution to sociolinguistics more broadly by offering new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between language and identity. The framework aims to understand how individuals negotiate and establish relations with each other and how they construct identity through language and social interaction. To date, the framework has been applied to the study of talk and identity in lesbian communities (Jones, 2012), to explore the relationship between gender and second language learning (Langman, 2004) and to examine articulations of class, identity and desire among transgender groups in India. (Hall, 2005) ToI recognizes that identities emerge in context, that they may be temporary and multiple, and that they are negotiated with other social actors and in relation to structures of ideology and power. Within the tactics of intersubjectivity model, ‘identity’ is treated not as an empirical category, but as a product of processes of identification. As Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 587) state: . . .we argue for a view of identity that is intersubjectively rather than individually produced and interactionally emergent rather than assigned in an a priori fashion. Identity is, therefore, seen as a discursive construct that emerges in interaction – it is emergent, intersubjective and relational. The tactics of intersubjectivity framework specifically develops this relational view of identity by offering an explicit methodological framework for considering how gender and sexual identities are produced relationally and intersubjectively in and through situated discourse. The framework has been successfully applied to analysis of gender and sexuality identity construction but, as yet, there have been no applications to the study of sexual identities in school contexts. Bucholtz and Hall describe ‘tactics of intersubjectivity’ as ‘analytic tools to call attention to salient aspects of the discourse situation’. (Bucholtz and Hall, 2004: 493) They identify three pairs of relational ‘tactics’ through which identity is intersubjectively constructed in local contexts of language use – adequation and distinction; authentication and denaturalization; authorization Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 54 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth and illegitimation. Each pair of tactics operates on a continuum rather than a dichotomy.1 Identities are intersubjectively constructed through several, often overlapping, complementary relations, including similarity/difference, genuineness/artifice, and authority/ delegitimacy. (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005: 598) The three pairs of tactics map onto three dimensions of intersubjectivity – similarity (adequation and distinction), realness (authentication and denaturalization) and power (authorization and illegitimation). (See Walz, 2016, for more details on the three dimensions of the ToI framework.) Table 3.2 contains definitions and examples of each of the tactics. Although these pairs of tactics are presented separately for the purpose of analysis, Bucholtz and Hall are careful to stress that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive and typically overlap and work in conjunction with one another in what they term ‘an ever-shifting matrix of identity relations’. (2004: 506) Tactics of intersubjectivity, with its roots in interactional sociolinguistics, is particularly useful for analyzing participants’ intersubjective processes of identification in interview data. Because the participants are explicitly talking about school experiences in the interviews, the subsequent incorporation of appraisal then enables a detailed and nuanced analysis of how they use evaluative language to appraise key entities, affective and social behaviours and processes. These are also a concern of tactics of intersubjectivity. An underpinning principle of appraisal is that evaluative language is intersubjective – it occurs in relation to people, behaviours, entities, processes and so on. And, importantly, evaluation can occur in relation to the key QAL issues of normativity, temporality and spatiality. Combined together, ToI and appraisal can provide a detailed explanation of how such concepts come to be discursively materialized and experienced by the participants. Whereas the ToI framework operates along intersubjective dimensions which are not aligned with any specific units of linguistic analysis, appraisal relates specifically to units of lexico-grammatical meaning. This means that the lexico-grammatical markers of appraisal can be seen as construing the tactics, therefore providing the ToI framework with analytical units. Processes of intersubjective identification are realized through the language of evaluative stance and positioning. How people evaluate things says things about how they want to perform their identity. When I apply the frameworks in Chapters 3 and 4, I find that the judgement subcategory of appraisal is used particularly frequently to construe the tactics, precisely because the tactics are social and behavioural (as is the judgement category 1 of the intersubjective tactics is presented using italics. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity (ToI): Framework 55 Table 3.2 Tactics of intersubjectivity Tactic Definition Adequation Speakers use language which makes appeals to social sameness and highlights social practices which are consistent with their own identity. Speakers use language which makes appeals to social difference and suppresses social practices which are not consistent with their own identity. Speakers use language to make claims to realness and authenticity in relation to their own and others’ identities. Distinction Authentication Denaturalization Speakers use language in ways that draw attention to how identity is experienced or perceived as being false, untrue, fragmented or problematic in some way. Realized as statements with meanings such as. . . They are like me I am like them Like straight people, I. . . We all have similar feelings People like me are different than. . . They treat us differently Unlike straight people, we. . . We have different feelings and experiences I am being open and honest about my sexual identity The sexuality I present to the world is a real and true reflection of how I feel I feel like my sexuality is recognized by, and reflected accurately in, society I am not open or honest about my sexual identity I pretend to be straight when really I am gay/ lesbian/bisexual My sexuality is not recognized by, or reflected accurately in, society Examples from data I can confide in someone who’s like been through the same thing. you wouldn’t do if you were straight so what’s the big difference. I don’t go round wearing little skirts and stuff like that I’m not a girly girl. it was surprisingly shocking and they treated me a lot different. I was like ‘sorry that’s just the way I am I’m more of a man than a woman’ it’s the truth she knew I was gay and she won’t have it she says ‘you are who you are’ you know. you don’t wanna say that to anybody so it was keep it quiet it’ll go away keep it quiet it’ll go away kind of a feeling for me that if I just carry on and just keep doing my work and stop playing football and say ‘yea I like that boy in the magazine’. try and conform to a certain extent that it it’ll all be just go away. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 56 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Table 3.2 (cont.) Tactic Definition Authorization Language use denotes a state whereby a subject is perceived to be afforded some degree of institutional recognition and where power is used to legitimate certain social identities. Language use denotes a state in which a subject is perceived as being structurally marginalized, and where power is used to revoke or withhold validation of certain identities. Illegitimation Realized as statements with meanings such as. . . Examples from data The institution (e.g. school) views my sexual and gender identity as acceptable I am allowed to be open about my sexual and gender identity in my school with no negative consequences my English teacher’s like she’s always supportive of it and she’s always on about treating people equally no matter what My sexuality is not seen as acceptable by the institution (e.g. school) There will be punitive consequences if I am openly LGBT+ in my school at my new school they’re currently discouraging gays and stuff I still got like ‘you poof’ and all that crap like that and it makes you feel uncomfortable. of appraisal). The three short examples from the data below illustrate the construal of tactics through appraisal judgement markers. at my new school they’re currently discouraging gays and stuff (illegitimation expressed as negative PROPRIETY) I’m not a girly girl (distinction expressed as negative NORMALITY) I’m more of a man than a woman it’s the truth (authentication expressed as positive VERACITY) The ToI framework was applied systematically to the entire data set so that every occurrence of each tactic was identified. Although the intention was not to conduct a quantitative analysis using the framework, the fact that every occurrence was identified, provided an indicator of which tactics were being expressed by the participants with greater frequency. This then provided a basis for selecting illustrative examples of what appeared to be the most salient issues for the young people through their use of the tactics throughout the interviews. The next part of this chapter will discuss and exemplify the key issues which emerged from the systematic application of the framework. Findings around each pair of tactics will be discussed in turn. The final part of the chapter then considers Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 57 the findings in relation to the other data sets in this book as well as discussing potential implications of the findings for educational policy and practice. Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis The analysis shows that the patterns of tactics of intersubjectivity used by the young people when talking about sexual orientation in relation to schooling can draw attention to the most salient issues and problems concerning sexual diversity and schools. Figure 3.1 shows the overall results of the ToI analysis. The tactic of illegitimation is the highest followed by distinction. The difference in frequency of occurrence between authentication, denaturalization and authorization is fairly small whilst adequation is the least frequently used tactic. The ‘negative’ tactics all occur more frequently than their corresponding positive counterparts within each dimension. The sections below consider key findings from the application of each pair of tactics in turn. Specific extracts from the data are included to illustrate these key findings to give an indication of what were the most salient issues expressed by the young people in relation to the construction of their LGBT+ identities. The specific parts of each extract which instantiate the tactics are underlined – no underline means that the whole of the extract instantiates the tactic. Adequation and Distinction According to Bucholtz and Hall, adequation and distinction within the dimension of ‘similarity’ are key ways of constructing identity through 180 165 160 140 121 120 94 100 86 88 80 60 51 40 20 0 Adequation Distinction Authentication Denaturalisation Authorisation Illegitimation Tactics of Intersubjectivity Figure 3.1 Tactics of intersubjectivity Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 58 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth language – this dimension provides a framework for accounting for how notions of sameness and difference are socially produced and perceived. The young people in the study were found to frequently engage these tactics in the process of understanding and constructing their sexual identities in relation to other social actors in the school environment. As expected, the participants used adequation around recognition of other LGBT+-identified people (students and teachers), as in the following example: JACK: I came out in college cuz I felt like college would be more people are a bit more open-minded they’ve matured a little bit not everyone obviously but no actually I didn’t even come out it was someone actually told my mom it was my mom’s best friend he was gay so I thought well I can confide in someone who’s like been through the same thing (adequation) Here, Jack expresses adequation (expressed as positive normality in appraisal terms – see appraisal section below for more detail) as feeling similar to someone who has ‘been through the same thing’ and evaluates this as a positive experience (in that he had someone to confide in). But adequation was also sometimes used to emphasize participants’ perceived similarities between LGBT+ and heterosexual identities (i.e. attempts to minimize the difference between them). The young people were both marking out their sexual identity as LGBT+, rather than heterosexual and/or cisgendered, but also made appeals to social sameness on the grounds that they did not wish to be treated differently in school from their heterosexual counterparts. In another example from Jack below, he utters the phrase ‘what’s the big difference’ to express adequation (a perceived similarity) between heterosexual and ‘gay’ identities. The adequation here (again construed as positive normality) involves asserting that both heterosexual and gay people do not openly and excessively discuss their sex lives and are therefore similar in this respect rather than different. JACK: it was about May time just before gay pride last year and well things are better now but that’s he’s [my Dad] accepted it but I think he’s got this stupid image in his head that I’m gonna go round talking about my sex life so which you wouldn’t do if you were straight so what’s the big difference (adequation) The young people’s use of distinction was more frequent than their use of adequation, suggesting that they often experienced their sexual orientation identities as marginal and ‘different’. Many of the occurrences of distinction Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 59 referred to the young people being treated differently as a result of their actual or perceived sexual identity in school. This treatment is reported as coming from teachers as well as other students. Some examples are as follows: JOSH: I’ve moved nearly every single time because of bullying just like being the odd one out sort of thing never really fit in when I was younger (distinction expressed as negative NORMALITY) TAD: the main school I sort of had problems with my sexuality is when I came out I was around fourteen and I came out to a sixth former and I felt comfortable in doing so because home life wasn’t going too good and in school I was being taunted anyway so I thought I’d just rather be open about it now and I came out and instantly I was thrown the stereotypes it was shocking and for a lot of people it was surprisingly shocking and they treated me a lot different (distinction expressed as negative NORMALITY and INSECURITY). In the examples above, Josh and Tad both report experiencing ‘problems’ with their (gay) sexuality and that they were bullied at school, suggesting that the distinction expressed in the extracts is something that was experienced negatively. The distinction is realized through the statements ‘never really fit in’ (Josh), ‘being the odd one out’ (Josh) and ‘they treated me a lot different’ (Tad). Tad discusses his experience of this distinction using negative affect (insecurity) terms such as ‘shocking’, ‘problems’ and ‘taunted’. This negative experience of distinction was the case for all of the other young people in the study and can also be seen in the extracts below. AMY: I was moving from juniors to senior schools obviously it’s a big leap to begin with but I never really had any trouble I’d always made friends very easily I always achieved academically teachers liked me everything was fine er until I was playing football and we I remember being on the pitch and I was playing against all the boys and somebody called out ‘oy lezza’and it tends to be with those kinds of names those kinds of connotations it sticks like superglue and it just escalated from there really to the gradual name-calling er of course everyone won’t sit next to you cuz you’re the lezza (distinction construed as negative NORMALITY) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 60 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth STEPHEN: one of them is a trans and the only trans like we have in the school I’ve talked to him um and he was saying oh he found it really hard when he came cuz he was the only one (distinction construed as negative NORMALITY and co-occurring with UNHAPPINESS) In the first example above, Amy reports being marked out as ‘different’ (an instantiation of distinction) as a direct result of her lesbian sexual orientation. Many of the occurrences of distinction referred to gender as well as sexual orientation. This supports previous work which has explored the interrelationship between constructions of gender and sexual orientation whereby sexual ‘difference’ is often (but not exclusively) understood, experienced and expressed through references to gender non-normativity. (e.g. Cameron, 1997; Coates, 2007) It is also interesting to note in this example how Amy reverts to the impersonal second person singular to generalize her own personal experience to a larger phenomenon. In the second example, above, Stephen discusses another student in his school who identifies as transgender and attributes the distinction to them with the phrase ‘he was the only one’. Stephen reports how the student in question ‘found it really hard’ thus attributing a negative affectual response to the process of distinction. In the next extract, Fay reports experiencing and understanding her sexual orientation in relation to what she is not, especially in relation to gender. The young people report these kinds of perceived distinctions as something which was problematic for them in their school environments. This suggests their schools were seen as restrictive in terms of possibilities for a range of gender expressions as well as sexual identities. FAY: when I left school things got a lot better in my life I started making more friends started to get meet more people started joining more groups outside of school I did start going to this club called Duke of Edinburgh [. . .] one of the youth workers said ‘stop acting like a boy to the boys’ like he didn’t say it word for word but he meant it was like ‘oh stop acting like such a lad you’re meant to be a girl act like a girl’ and I was like ‘sorry that’s just the way I am I’m more of a man than a woman’ (distinction) it’s the truth (authentication expressed as positive VERACITY)I am you know that by the way I dress and whatnot I don’t go round wearing little skirts and stuff like that I’m not a girly girl (distinction expressed as negative NORMALITY) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 61 In sum, the adequation occurrences in the data mostly refer to participants’ recognition of, and feelings of affiliation with, other LGBT+-identified people in school. However, some adequation occurrences are used to emphasize participants’ perceived similarities between LGBT+ and heterosexual identities (i.e. attempts to minimize the differences between them). The distinction occurrences are used mainly as a means of the participants experiencing and constructing their sexual identity as socially ‘different’ from their peers. Some of the distinction occurrences are also used to refer to participants’ perceived gender identities as being socially different from the majority of their peers. Authentication and Denaturalization In the data, there were few examples of authentication occurring in relation to LGBT+ identities. This suggests that the participants’ perceive ‘authentic’ LGBT+ identities as being largely invisible in school. There were a small handful of instances in which some of the young people referred to particular teachers who they perceived as lending a degree of authentication to their LGBT+ identities through their verbal acknowledgement or acceptance of them, as Carl states: CARL: I wasn’t too keen on English but the teacher was great if anybody would have said anything she would have you know she wouldn’t have it she know she knows she knew I was gay and she says ‘you are who you are’you know (authentication) Carl reports the teacher as lending authentication to his gay identity through the attributed phrase ‘you are who you are’ and also through his confirmation that ‘she knew I was gay’ (construed as positive veracity on the part of Carl). Both of these phrases denote honesty and openness between Carl and his teacher; he was openly gay with her and did not try to conceal his sexual identity. The teacher recognized this openness and reportedly authenticated Carl’s identity by stating that he should not attempt to change or conceal it. If she had done this, it would have been an instance of denaturalization (and illegitimation) rather than authentication. But there were, in fact, more occurrences of the young people explicitly noting the absence of authenticating practices around LGBT+ identities, as in the following extract: HANNAH: I can’t recall ever in English it ever being ever being discussed I don’t know whether that was purposely or whether it just didn’t come up but no it wasn’t really spoke about at all (absence of authentication) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 62 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Hannah laments the perceived lack of authentication around LGBT+ identities in their schools. At several points during the interviews, the young people talked about a perceived lack of authenticating practices around LGBT+ identities specifically in relation to the curriculum (usually construed as negative veracity and therefore ‘dishonesty’). Some of the young people specifically mentioned the subject of English and all reported an absence of authentication around LGBT+ identities in their English classes, as in the examples below: AMY: it wasn’t really discussed if it was discussed at all it was discussed in passing and then it’s gone I remember reading what’s the book called brilliant book The Color Purple fabulous book I stayed up all night reading it was one of those books for me but even with that it wasn’t really mentioned (absence of authentication) which to me was like surely that’s a huge part of this book. ABBY: [discussing studying Oscar Wilde in English] the teacher would be like brush it off oh you’re reading a bit far into this [. . .] he’d be like Abby you’re just looking a bit too far (absence of authentication) As well as stating that LGBT+ identities and issues were absent as a form of authenticating practice from the English curriculum, Amy points out how this can have a negative and confusing effect. In discussing the teaching of The Color Purple, she reflects on her confusion about the absence of discussion of the lesbian relationship which she considers to be at the very heart of the novel. This contributes to Amy’s overall view of her school as unaccepting and hostile in relation to LGBT+ identities. Similarly, Abby reflects on her experience of studying the work of Oscar Wilde in English and offering an interpretation of the work in relation to Wilde’s known homosexuality. Abby reports that the teacher claimed she was ‘reading a bit far into this’, thus closing down an opportunity for discussing sexuality issues in the context of the lesson. The occurrences of participants noting an absence of authentication could arguably also be coded as illegitimation, as the cumulative effect of the lack of authentication at a micro level results in illegitimation at an institutional level. I return to this point later. When authentication did occur in relation to LGBT+ identities, it tended to be expressed as hypothetical or as something which was desired, but which did not currently happen in school. I have termed these occurrences as irrealis authentication (a term used in appraisal analysis – see appraisal section for more detail) to indicate that the speaker is referring to something hypothetical rather than actual instances. Irrealis markers are Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 63 realized through the use of certain modal verbs and other verbs of intent, but also other lexical resources can be used (note the use of would, can and if in the extracts below). Some typical occurrences of irrealis authentication (which are often construed as positive valuation in appraisal terms) being used by the participants to express a need for the actual authentication of LGBT+ identities are as follows: AMY: I think English is perhaps the best subject to introduce it through it’s a very what can I say creative subject you can’t get English right or wrong because it’s all about a matter of opinion and your perception a book can mean something to me and mean something completely different to you and I think it’s a good way of maybe celebrating differences so I think it’d be a perfect subject to really egg on the issue of homophobia and sexuality making it just an everyday thing that it’s not it doesn’t have to be a ‘right now we’re gonna talk about gay issues’you know it can just be a part of everyday conversation and it not have to be focused on (irrealis authentication) FAY: maybe if there’s you know like there’s different groups things like that there’s well if there’s like an agent from each of them that went to the school to the different schools just to speak about it in an assembly and like let all the kids know about it [. . .] make it more visible make everyone know ‘hello we are here’(irrealis authentication) In these instances, the young people do not state that LGBT+ identities are authenticated but, instead, provide helpful suggestions for how they believe LGBT+ identities could be authenticated within the school environment. Amy suggests curriculum changes to English (such as incorporating texts in English that contain gay characters) and the opening up of conversations which normalize sexual diversity (‘it can just be a part of everyday conversation’). Fay suggests assemblies and support groups as ways of increasing visibility of LGBT+ identities (‘hello we are here’). The irrealis (unrealized) nature of these suggested authentication strategies is indicated through the use of modal verbs (in Amy’s extract, note the use of ‘can’ and ‘would’) and modal adjuncts such as ‘maybe’ and ‘if’ (used by both participants). They state in these extracts that, if these strategies are deployed in schools, then it is more likely that LGBT+ identities will become authenticated. The young people use denaturalization (construed as negative veracity) mainly to refer to their efforts at concealing their LGBT+ identities in the school environment, as in the following example: Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 64 AMY: The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth I knew that I should tell somebody about what was going on so I told my mum but it’s not one of those things that you really wanna spread about even more you don’t wanna say that to anybody so it was keep it quiet it’ll go away keep it quiet it’ll go away kind of a feeling for me that if I just carry on and just keep doing my work and stop playing football and say ‘yea I like that boy in the magazine’(denaturalization) try and conform to a certain extent that it it’ll all be just go away (denaturalization) Amy had earlier discussed having been bullied because students had believed her to be a lesbian. She reports (above) how she subsequently pretended (an instantiation of denaturalization) to be attracted to boys to avoid further bullying. Thus, fear is a key emotion (expressed in appraisal terms as insecurity) which the participants express in relation to the occurrences of denaturalization, suggesting that they experienced school as a non-tolerant and threatening environment in relation to their sexual orientation. This denaturalization example shows overwhelmingly that, for the most part, the young people were not comfortable with disclosing their sexual identity at school and did not view school as a safe and tolerant environment. But, importantly, the young people see the introduction of more visible and numerous authentication strategies (such as the curriculum changes and introduction of groups and assemblies addressing LGBT+ issues mentioned by Amy and Fay in earlier examples) as being a means of changing this. This is a significant and helpful point which could help schools understand how to create safer and more accepting and inclusive environments for their students. Denaturalization was also used by the young people to indicate how silence and absence around non-heterosexual identities functioned to denaturalize them, as in the following examples: JOSH: they never really sit you down and talk to you about it they sort of just push it aside and sweep it under the mat (denaturalization) ASHFORD: for us that’s all just like shoved under the carpet and ignored as much as possible (denaturalization) The denaturalization tactic is used here to render LGBT+ identities as ‘not authentic’ because they are not afforded any visibility in the school context. Denaturalization was used in a similar way by the educators, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 65 Authorization and Illegitimation The final pair of tactics in Bucholtz and Hall’s framework are authorization and illegitimation within the power dimension. They consider the structural and institutional aspects of identity formation. Illegitimation can be enacted through the censoring or ignoring of particular identities, as well as by explicitly dismissing them and this enactment of illegitimation was found to frequently occur in the data. The occurrences of authorization which relate to sexual orientation in the data are quite complex. Some of the instances refer explicitly to the perceived authorization of heterosexual identities in the school context. For example: INT: were issues around heterosexuality ever raised did that come up in discussion or did that come up in analyzing a text or a film CARL: yea cuz they was all about men and women men being with women (authorization of heterosexuality) Here, Carl reports that heterosexual relationships between women and men were explicitly discussed when they occurred in the materials being used in lessons, a clear example of the institutional authorization of heterosexual identities. Although they were few, some examples did refer to the authorization of LGBT+ identities. However, on close examination, it appears that these occurrences tend to be hypothetical or irrealis, as is the case with many of the authentication examples which refer to LGBT+ identities. There were, in fact, hardly any examples of the actual authorization of LGBT+ identities. Most of these examples involved the young people constructing an ‘idealized’ version of the school environment in which LGBT+ identities would be authorized (irrealis authorization). This occurs in a similar way to the ‘idealized’ or irrealis authentication of LGBT+ identities discussed in the previous section. For example: AMY: outside the school I had [name of youth group] but it would have been nice from an earlier age than so before I even reached senior school to know that homosexuality exists and that it’s all right (irrealis authorization) In this example, Amy uses the modals ‘would have’ within the verbal group to indicate that the authorization practice of ‘knowing that homosexuality exists and that it’s all right’ had not actually occurred in primary school but that she would have experienced this as something positive (‘it would have been nice’) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 66 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth if it had occurred. The authorization ‘it’s all right’ is, again, a hypothetical endorsement of LGBT+ identities as being socially sanctioned within school. Again, the fact that most occurrences of authorization in relation to LGBT+ identities were irrealis (such as the one above) suggests that the young people perceive a need for actual authorization and that this would be something that would have improved their own school experiences. Another key point emerging from the analysis of authorization is that many of the occurrences refer to the young people’s perceived authorization of homophobic identities. The latter is often experienced and identified through the inaction of schools and teachers towards homophobic bullying. By not challenging homophobic practices, the young people perceived ‘the school’ as colluding in those practices. In the example below, Carl states that he was ‘getting bullied’ and that he experienced this bullying as being authorized by the school through their lack of response to it (‘they wasn’t doing anything about it’ and ‘the bullies would be let go’). Given that bullying is usually an activity that is challenged and reprimanded within schools, Carl’s assertion that his teachers neither challenged the homophobic bullying nor reprimanded the bullies is noteworthy as an example of the authorization of bullying through inaction on the part of the school. Carl also refers to the habitual nature of this through his use of the phrase ‘a lot of that happened’. CARL: I was getting bullied and I was going to them [teachers] and they wasn’t doing anything about it (authorization of homophobic bullying expressed as negative CAPACITY attributed to teachers)a lot of that happened the bullies would be let go (authorization of homophobic bullying expressed as negative CAPACITY attributed to teachers) The examples of illegitimation, as expected, often refer to the young people’s perceived illegitimation of LGBT+ identities; the young people reflect on experiencing school as a place where LGBT+ identities are, for the most part, illegitimized. In the extract below, Tad reports his homosexuality as being constructed as a ‘problem’ by his school, which is an example of the school’s illegitimation of gay identity. Tad also reports that he was ‘asked to leave the school’ when he did not supply the names of his bullies. This is a further instantiation of illegitimation in that the school chose to exclude a gay student rather than those who were bullying him. In the data, most of these types of occurrences of illegitimation were expressed in appraisal terms as negative propriety ascribed to the self. TAD: I was seen as a sort of a main problem (illegitimation) and because the bullying was limited by some of the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Tactics of Intersubjectivity: Analysis 67 teachers pinpointing who was bullying me wanted to ask names but obviously I wasn’t that comfortable in giving out names for fear of being hurt again so because I didn’t respond in the way that they wanted me to I was asked to leave the school the tutor sat down with my mother and said ‘either way he’s black he’s gay and he’s gonna have problems anywhere he goes’ (illegitimation) As in previous extracts, Tad states fear (realized as insecurity in the appraisal system) as being a key emotion which he experienced in relation to this aspect of his schooling; he reports not naming his bullies for fear of further bullying and goes on to state how his gay identity was subsequently illegitimized rather than the identities of the bullies being illegitimized. There were numerous other instances in the data set of the young people reporting on their schools’ illegitimation of LGBT+ identities. Some examples are as follows: RUBY: at my new school they’re currently discouraging gays and stuff [. . .] they’re just like we don’t like people being gay and we don’t encourage people being gay (illegitimation) DAN: when we did about marriage it has to be heterosexual cuz it has to I asked the teacher and she said we can’t do anything like LGBT and marriage because it’s illegal to do it in the church and school (illegitimation) ASHFORD: we had to do an anti-homophobia poster and on mine I referenced asexuality on it and my teacher told me off for it (illegitimation) ASHFORD: they were talking about friends and relationships and all that in French and in his paragraph he put down boyfriend and he keeps doing it to see how many times it’s corrected to girlfriend and right now it’s been seven times he’s been corrected from boyfriend to girlfriend in French (illegitimation) ABBY: girls couldn’t wear blazers and boys couldn’t wear jumpers and the boys had to wear ties and the girls didn’t have to wear ties and they wore like the feminine the V tops which I hated but we weren’t allowed to wear ties because it was you know in a grammar school it’s like boys and girls there’s no in between (illegitimation) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 68 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth NICKY: they’re kinda just like girl boy this is what you get as a girl this is what you get as a boy but they’d never kind of like have the possibilities of in-between (denaturalization/illegitimation) In the extracts above, it is not only LGB identities which are perceived to be illegitimated in the school context. Ashford reflects on the illegitimation of asexuality and Abby and Nicky report illegitimation occurring in relation to non-normative gender identities and gender diversity. However, illegitimation also occurred in relation to the identities of homophobic ‘bullies’ throughout the interviews. For example, the students sometimes discussed particular teachers who challenge homophobic bullying and are therefore perceived as illegitimizing those who construct an identity as a bully. In doing so, they condemn their behaviour using negative propriety. For example: FAY: in certain classrooms the only time this girl starts having a real fight and comes over and fights me the teacher runs out the classroom right goes to the classroom next door which is Mr [Name] he was a safe good teacher he was safe he was the safest teacher I would say and he came in like and was like ‘right get off her now’ literally he didn’t that’s why he was so safe he would say if they were being bullied if they started saying anything he would go straight to the room like ‘oy stop that’ (illegitimation of bullying) Here, Fay reports that because she perceives homophobic bullying to be illegitimized in this context, she has a good relationship and responds well to the teacher (‘he was safe’). Thus, when homophobic bullying is illegitimized, Fay’s emotional response and enjoyment of school is more positive. In fact, all of the young people interviewed perceived teachers’ explicit illegitimization of homophobic bullying as an experience which made them feel more positive about engaging with school. In sum, findings from the data presented in this chapter so far indicate that in the schools attended by the young LGBT+ people, there is a state of pervasive illegitimation surrounding LGBT+ identities. The participants express a desire for this institutional illegitimation to be replaced by authorization using a range of authentication strategies in their schools, and give specific examples of how this may be achieved in different lessons and as whole-school strategies. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Framework 69 Appraisal: Framework The next stage in the analysis involved analyzing the interviews using the framework of appraisal (Martin, 2000; Martin and White, 2005) in order to provide a more nuanced analysis of the evaluative language used by the young people. As explained earlier in this chapter, appraisal also provides a framework for analyzing how some of the tactics of intersubjectivity are realized in specific units of linguistic analysis. The tactics, therefore, can be construed as interactional effects or outcomes of the linguistic markers of evaluation. The analysis of evaluative language also provides more information about how the young people feel and intersubjectively position themselves in relation to sexual diversity issues in schools and how they evaluate their experience of being LGBT+ in school. The framework of appraisal is explained in this section and is used to analyze interview data both in this chapter and in Chapter 4 (educator interviews). Appraisal provides a framework for analyzing and describing evaluative language and categorizing the ways that feelings, emotions, attitudes, values, social relationships and experiences are encoded in language. The appraisal system categorizes the ways that social relationships and experiences are encoded in and enacted through language. Martin defines appraisal as: The semantic resources used to negotiate emotions, judgements, and valuations, alongside resources for amplifying and engaging with these evaluations. (Martin, 2000: 145) Appraisal consists of the systems of attitude, graduation and engagement. attitude is the primary system through which people express emotions, judgements and values and is therefore of most interest in the present study. Martin identifies three broad subsystems of attitudinal positioning within the appraisal system: affect, which refers to the linguistic resources deployed for construing the individual’s emotional responses; judgement, which refers to the linguistic resources deployed for construing moral or social evaluations of behaviour; and appreciation, which refers to the linguistic resources deployed for construing the ‘aesthetic’ qualities of processes and natural phenomena. When people talk about sexuality, they tend to talk very explicitly about personal feelings, emotions, values and judgements. For this reason, appraisal is a suitable analytical framework. Some examples of each of the main subsystems of attitude are included below (appraising items are underlined). AFFECT: it’s sort of discomforting when they’re saying you have sex with a woman and that’s the end of it (INSECURITY) over the summer I’d been feeling really bad (UNHAPPINESS) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 70 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth JUDGEMENT: I had to leave due to my dyslexia and they couldn’t cater for it (-CAPACITY) they don’t really get that it’s part of their job (-CAPACITY) I didn’t say anything to any of the teachers (-VERACITY) APPRECIATION: this kind of was a positive story (+VALUATION) it’s just a waste of effort and money and stuff and we’re not actually learning what we need to learn (-VALUATION) As indicated above, each of the categories can have a positive or negative value. These values work on a sliding scale of graduation, where evaluations may be intensified, played down and where comparisons may be drawn for amplifying effect. Appraisal categories are mainly distinguished semantically, and are realized primarily through the lexico-grammar of a text. Figure 3.2 provides an overview of the system of attitude. Each of the three subsystems of attitude will now be explained in more detail before discussing the findings of the study. Affect is primarily concerned with the semantic resources deployed for construing emotions and feelings. Martin (2000) and Martin and White (2005) subdivide affect into four subsystems to add delicacy to the framework. Table 3.3 shows the affect subcategories which work on a sliding scale of positive and negative dimensions. Judgement enables a speaker/writer to evaluate behaviour as conforming or not conforming to a particular set of social/cultural norms. This is the aspect of attitude that deals with social evaluations of behaviour and social practice, and it is these aspects of evaluative language that position the individual within a broader social and cultural system. judgement is subdivided into two broad areas: Social esteem – Assesses institutions, individuals and behaviours in terms of their: normality (how usual/unusual they are), capacity (how capable they are) and tenacity (how determined or resolute they are). Social esteem markers provide evaluations of how behaviour conforms or does not conform to socially desirable standards. Social sanction – Assesses institutions, individuals and behaviours veracity (how truthful they are) and propriety (how ethical they are) and provides evaluative markers which indicate whether a behaviour is seen as right or wrong. (Based on Martin, 2000) Figure 3.3 summarizes the judgement system. Appreciation is the subsystem of attitude that expresses positive and negative evaluations of texts, processes and phenomena. Affect and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Framework 71 Table 3.3 Subcategories of affect Positive affect Negative affect Inclination (expresses feelings of desire) Happiness (expresses feelings of cheerfulness and affection) Security (expresses feelings of confidence and trust) Satisfaction (expresses feelings of interest and admiration) Disinclination (expresses feelings of fear) Unhappiness (expresses feelings of misery and antipathy) Insecurity (expresses feelings of disquiet and surprise) Dissatisfaction (expresses feelings of ennui and displeasure) Reaction Impact (did it grab me?) Quality (did I like it?) Balance (did it hang together?) Appreciation (of text/process) Composition Complexity (was it hard to follow?) Valuation (was it worthwhile?) Un/happiness (affairs of the heart) In/security (eco-social well being) Affect (emotion) Dis/satisfaction (pursuit of goals) Normality (is s/he special?) Capacity (is s/he capable?) Judgement (behaviour) Tenacity (is s/he dependable?) Veracity (is s/he honest?) Propriety (is s/he beyond reproach?) Figure 3.2 Attitudinal appraisal framework (adapted from Eggins and Slade 1997, and Martin and White, 2005) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 72 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Figure 3.3 judgement categories (based on Martin, 2000) judgement are different in that they refer to the feelings and judgements of people. According to Martin (2000), the appreciation subsystem is organized around three variables – reaction (the degree to which the text/process/ phenomena in question captures our attention and the emotional impact it has on us), composition (our perceptions of proportionality and detail of the text/process/phenomena) and valuation (assessment of the social significance of the text/process/phenomena). Martin argues that both judgement and appreciation are, to a certain degree, ‘institutionalisations of feeling’ in that they both encode feelings. Martin proposes that affect is the basic system of attitude, which is then institutionalized into judgement and appreciation so that ‘judgement institutionalizes feelings as proposals (about behaviour), whereas appreciation institutionalizes feelings as propositions (about things)’. (Martin 2000, 147) For example, in the extract below, Sex and Relationships Education classes as a phenomenon are negatively valued using the appraising items ‘a waste of effort and money and stuff’ and ‘we’re not actually learning what we need to learn’ which are labelled as appreciation. it’s [SRE] just a waste of effort and money and stuff and we’re not actually learning what we need to learn (-VALUATION) But describing SRE lessons as being ‘a waste of effort. . .’ implies that I feel dissatisfied by the lessons and I experience negative emotion as a result of its negative value, therefore the evaluation contains an element of affect at its most basic level which is then institutionalized into an evaluation of something as ‘a waste of effort and money’. For ease of reference, I have simply ‘doublecoded’ the relevant examples cited in this paper, as the distinction between Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 73 90 79 80 70 60 50 46 40 36 31 30 22 20 12 14 10 0 1 Dis/inclination Un/happiness Positive In/security Dis/satisfaction Negative Figure 3.4 Affect – Evaluation of own feelings whether the appreciation is institutionalized affect or not is not of central importance in this analysis. Appraisal: Analysis In this section, findings are presented around the three main subsystems of affect, judgement and appreciation. Each attitude marker was identified in the data and then all markers were counted up. Within each subsystem, the numbers of attitude markers in the whole data set are presented and discussed in the sections below. It was also useful to separately examine the attitude markers used when the young people were referring to their own feelings and judgements only. In the overall markers, attitudes expressed towards and ascribed to others (e.g. teachers, parents) are also included. The quantitative findings are presented using bar charts in each case and then discussed in more detail with illustrative examples from the data. Whilst the quantitative findings are useful for giving an overview of the main feelings, judgements and valuations which predominate in the data, a qualitative examination of specific examples is revealing for seeing how these markers are being used in context and, importantly, what some of their key referents are and how they help to realize intersubjective processes of identification. Affect Figure 3.4 shows the distribution of the different types of affect markers used by the young people to refer to their own feelings and emotions. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 74 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Figure 3.4 shows that the most frequently occurring affect category is unhappiness followed by insecurity. In all four of the affect subcategories, negative feelings occur more frequently than the corresponding positive ones. This shows that the young people’s evaluation of their own feelings throughout the interviews in relation to their gender and/or sexual identity and school is overwhelmingly negative. The most frequently occurring of all of the subcategories is unhappiness. Some examples are included below (appraising items are underlined): ASHLEY: I’ve always had sort of really terrible anxiety and depression and sort of gradually feelings got worse and worse FAY: I hated school I used to do whatever I wanted to get away from it it was that bad JOSH: screaming on the inside like I’m not happy at this school I’m getting bullied MARTIN: I had loads of problems at school [. . .] it [school] was just awful for me TODD: I had anger issues I used to throw tables and chairs and walk out crying cos things made me really upset The young people also express insecurity relatively frequently when discussing their own feelings of being LGBT+ in school. Some examples include: ASHLEY: there was a dress code and I had to abide by that and all of that made me feel very uncomfortable ASHLEY: it would be just very confrontational in a way that sort of made me very very anxious gave me sort of panic attacks JOHN: I got that all the time as well as the dirty looks that make you feel uncomfortable JOSH: it’s just sort of discomforting when they’re saying when you have sex with a woman and that’s the end of it ABBY: I remember this relationship sort of thing I had with this one girl and like I was terrified she’d like use it if we’d fall out I don’t know why it’d bother me but if we’d fall out she’d be like I’m going to tell everyone and stuff I would be absolutely terrified I would like have nightmares I wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 75 Although not occurring as frequently as unhappiness and insecurity, dissatisfaction occurs much higher than the corresponding satisfaction subcategory (which occurs only once in the entire data set). In the examples below, factors reported as causing feelings of dissatisfaction included, most notably, the strict gendering of the school environment (Ashley and Ashford) and the school’s SRE provision (Todd). ASHLEY: I hated the fact that it was all boys I hated the fact that I wasn’t they didn’t really want me to use my chosen name they didn’t want me to use my chosen pronouns ASHFORD: that annoys me when the fire bell goes why do I need to line up with a bunch of girls TODD: you get like sexual health but it’s only on straight people which was so annoying I was like I don’t need to know all about this straight stuff Although the young people’s evaluations of their own feelings were more negative than positive in all of the affect subcategories, it is still interesting to examine the instances where they expressed positive affect in order to uncover what it is about school environments that can result in positive affect. Some examples of happiness and security are included below. The factor that the young people attribute to their happiness and security the most is having the support of individual teachers in the school, again, emphasizing the importance of individual teachers as a recurring theme throughout young people’s interviews. ALEX: I had a mentor at school and he like helped me (HAPPINESS) cos I was really troubled JACK: an RE teacher actually supported me (HAPPINESS) ASHFORD: my teacher that I trust (SECURITY)the most that I went to about being trans he is one of the most progressive people in the entire school TAD: luckily I had in the school which I was being bullied in a teacher who was gay and she worked with physical education and she made it more comfortable for me (SECURITY) to even be in that environment Some also attributed happiness and security to organizations outside of the school itself, such as LGBT+ youth groups. But it is perhaps worth Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 76 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth 18 17 16 14 13 12 12 10 8 7 6 5 4 2 2 0 1 Dis/inclination Un/happiness Positive In/security 1 Dis/satisfaction Negative Figure 3.5 Affect – Evaluation of others’ feelings emphasizing that these factors that are attributed to positive affect occur outside the school rather than taking place within the school itself. TODD: [LGBT+ youth group]’s given me a lot of help it’s really helped me (HAPPINESS) FAY: through coming to [LGBT+ youth group] I’ve actually become a better person I’m not scared (SECURITY) of my sexuality I’m not scared (SECURITY) of other people ASHLEY: we’ve also got a big LGBT network and my involvement in that has been very helpful (HAPPINESS) it was also really helpful (HAPPINESS) that I’m on the women’s committee Figure 3.5 shows the distribution of affect markers used when the young people refer to the feelings of other people who they mentioned in the interviews. Figure 3.5 shows that insecurity is the most frequently occurring affect subcategory used by the young people when talking about the feelings of others, followed by disinclination and unhappiness. The total occurrences are lower overall though, reflecting that the young people provided more evaluation of their own feelings than those of others in the interviews. However, the affect attributed to other people is also overwhelmingly negative. In the disinclination, unhappiness and insecurity Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 77 examples below, the young people attribute some of these feelings to other LGBT+ students. FAY: there could be kids out there like ‘I like this what does that make me’something like that if they’re like struggling (UNHAPPINESS) to know who they are JACK: there’s seven people in that class that are thinking ‘oh shit’(INSECURITY) right now DAN: the only trans we have in the school which is quite I’ve talked to him and he was like saying he found it really hard (UNHAPPINESS) when he came cos he was the only one and he found it really hard (UNHAPPINESS) Insecurity examples, in particular, were also attributed to teachers being ‘afraid’ to openly address sexuality issues in their classes and in school generally: HANNAH: I think a lot of teachers are scared (INSECURITY) to bring it up JOSH: Miss was very shocked (INSECURITY) when I wrote about a gay teen suicide of Jamie Rodemeyer and he killed himself and I wrote about that Finally, some of the negative affect examples attributed to others referred to their perceived discomfort and insecurity of non-heteronormative identities. AMY: I had to change separate from the rest of the class because they refused to change in front of me (INSECURITY) RUBY: they’re [the school] just like they’re not we don’t like (DISINCLINATION) people being gay and we don’t encourage (DISINCLINATION) people being gay Taken together, these typical examples of affect suggest an overwhelmingly negative school climate for LGBT+ students. Judgement Figure 3.6 shows the distribution of judgement markers used by the young people when evaluating their own behaviour. Figure 3.6 reveals that the judgement subcategories of capacity and veracity occur the most frequently when the young people are making Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 78 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth 40 36 36 35 32 28 30 24 25 20 22 16 15 8 10 3 5 0 8 Normality Capacity Tenacity Positive Veracity Propriety Negative Figure 3.6 Judgement – Evaluation of own behaviour judgements about their own behaviour. The positive and negative veracity examples refer mainly to the young people disclosing or not disclosing (being ‘out’ or ‘not out’) their gender or sexuality identity, as in the following examples. AMY: you don’t wanna say that to anybody so it was keep it quiet it’ll go away keep it quiet it’ll go away (-VERACITY) kind of a feeling for me [. . .] if I just carry on and just keep doing my work and stop playing football and say ‘yea I like that boy in the magazine’try and conform (-VERACITY) to a certain extent that it’ll all be just go away ASHLEY: I came out in secondary school I was very open (+VERACITY) about being trans I came out about 16 so both the school and pretty much all of the students knew about it (+VERACITY) JACK: I didn’t come out (-VERACITY) at school just because it was quite homophobic and well especially in a Catholic school when it’s always depicted as being wrong in RE and stuff so like it was just I weren’t willing to do it so I kept it to myself (-VERACITY) STEPHEN: I kind of came out (+VERACITY) slowly to my teachers like I told my SEN [Special Educational Needs] worker then they had a meeting with all the staff Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis ABBY: 79 I’m still not out (-VERACITY) in that area because it’s just not spoken about really The attitudinal judgement subcategory refers to social behaviour, therefore the markers can function to express aspects of social identity covered by the ToI framework. In the above examples, negative veracity realizes denaturalization of LGBT+ identities and positive veracity is used to realize authentication. In the positive capacity occurrences in which the participants are evaluating their own behaviour, these tend to occur in relation to positive assessments of their own academic ability – they do not refer to anything explicitly to do with gender or sexuality. However, the negative capacity occurrences often refer to the participants’ perceived lack of knowledge and awareness of gender and sexual diversity, in particular, anything outside of heteronormativity (traditional gender binaries and heterosexuality). These negative capacity markers often co-occur with negative affect markers and denaturalization in the ToI framework, as in the following examples: FAY: at first I didn’t know (-CAPACITY) what a lesbian was I only thought there was em gays and bis I didn’t even know (-CAPACITY) there was a lesbian (denaturalization) until I met that guy he told me about lesbians and transsexuals and hermaphrodites and loads of other areas but until I met him I didn’t know (-CAPACITY) about any of that (denaturalization) JACK: always in my head when I was young I was thinking ‘I’m never gonna be able to (-CAPACITY) come out’just couldn’t (-CAPACITY) get on with my life just be pretending (denaturalization) In the normality and propriety subcategories of judgement, negative occurrences are higher than positive ones. Some examples of negative normality and negative propriety are included below. The negative normality examples most often occur when the participant is evaluating their own behaviour as different from the perceived ‘norm’ operating in the spatiotemporal context of their school. In this way, many of the negative normality occurrences overlap with instances of distinction in the ToI framework and, in doing so, this tells us which specific elements of evaluative lexicogrammar function to realize the distinction. The negative propriety examples below often occur when participants reflect on what behaviours (of their own and others) were disallowed or condemned in the school context. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 80 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Thus, the negative propriety examples usually function to instantiate the tactic of illegitimation. FAY: I’ve had comments about being a dyke being a weirdo being a freak (-NORMALITY; distinction) JOHN: I wasn’t like out or anything like that but I still got like ‘you poof’and all crap like that (-NORMALITY; distinction) JOSH: I’ve moved nearly every single time because of bullying just like being the odd one out (-NORMALITY; distinction) sort of thing never really fit in (-NORMALITY; distinction) when I was younger ABBY: girls couldn’t wear blazers and the boys couldn’t wear jumpers (-PROPRIETY; illegitimation) and stuff like that and the boys had to wear ties and the girls didn’t have to wear ties and they wore like the feminine v-tops which I hated but we weren’t allowed to wear ties (-PROPRIETY; illegitimation) for a while until the last year because it was you know in a grammar school it’s like boys and girls there’s no in between or anything NICKY: it’s almost like if you’re the first one to come out and be gay or dress differently you’re the one that’s going to be made an example of (-PROPRIETY; illegitimation) [. . .] it’s like being gay and kind of like dressing gay is on another level so you don’t wanna kind of bring the attention to yourself TAD: I was seen as a sort of main problem (-PROPRIETY; illegitimation) Tenacity is a relatively infrequently occurring subcategory of judgement in the data. When it does occur, there are more positive than negative occurrences and these are mainly to do with the young people reflecting on their own perseverance and resilience in the face of perceived adversity surrounding gender and sexual diversity issues, as in the following examples: CHARLIE: if a random kid like just like bullies for any reason I don’t let it get to me (+TENACITY) MARTIN: I had fortnightly meetings with the principal because I was the only one to stand up for (+TENACITY) the way things were in school Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 81 160 139 140 120 99 100 85 80 60 38 40 20 0 30 17 16 5 4 Normality Capacity 8 Tenacity Positive Veracity Propriety Negative Figure 3.7 Judgement – Evaluation of others’ behaviour Examples such as these show that the young people interviewed felt they needed fairly high levels of tenacity in order to survive and thrive in the school environment. Figure 3.7 shows the distribution of judgement markers used by the young people when evaluating the behaviour of other people who are referred to in the interviews. Figure 3.7 reveals quite different trends in evaluating the behaviour of others from the most frequent ways that the young people evaluated their own behaviour. In making judgements about the behaviour of others, propriety emerges as the highest category (both positive and negative) suggesting that the young people are concerned with the moral and ethical behaviour of others, whereas they are more concerned with honesty and capability when evaluating their own behaviour. Because of its high frequency, it is worth examining who and what sort of behaviour is being judged as unethical and immoral by the young people. In the examples below, several instances of propriety are attributed to other young people in relation to their positive or negative attitudes towards gender non-conforming and/or LGBT+ identities and relationships (both their own and those of others): AMY: children are so critical (-PROPRIETY) as we were saying children are cruel (-PROPRIETY) ASHLEY: no one has really said anything awful to me about my gender or sexuality everyone’s been kind of accepting (+PROPRIETY) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 82 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth CARL: every time we had an assembly if there was an award ceremony and he had to go up and get a certificate or anything they’d all shout out hide your arse or watch your arse something like that (-PROPRIETY) FAY: they like treated me with respect (+PROPRIETY) they didn’t treat me like I was different RUBY: we did have one lesbian cover teacher who came in and like some of the guys in that class were complete dickheads (-PROPRIETY) HANNAH: we had a gay teacher once and she got mocked a lot for being gay (-PROPRIETY) NICKY: there was an out lesbian couple and as soon as everyone found out about them people refused to get changed in the same changing room at PE and no teacher ever did anything about it (-PROPRIETY) Other examples attribute positive or negative propriety to particular teachers in the young people’s schools. ASHLEY: the first person I came out to at school was a teacher and was the head of the English department [. . .] he was completely accepting of it (+PROPRIETY) I sort of came to him in a distraught mess and he was just great (+PROPRIETY) CARL: I actually started telling people I was gay and then Mr Baker changed and he started to be very nasty to me (-PROPRIETY) FAY: some of the teachers were really horrible to me (-PROPRIETY) because I was bi STEPHEN: my English teacher’s like she’s really supportive of it and she’s always on about treating people equally no matter what the sexuality or what the sexual identity is (+PROPRIETY) ASHFORD: we had two lessons on it and one of them was we had to do an anti-homophobia poster and on mine I referenced asexuality on it and my teacher told me off for it (-PROPRIETY) ASHFORD: the entire class is just really transphobic (-PROPRIETY) and it’s just not a very nice atmosphere and the teachers almost laugh along with it (-PROPRIETY) MARTIN: my head of year was amazing she was always helpful (+PROPRIETY) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 83 Negative propriety also occurs when evaluating the school’s (perceived negative) attitude towards LGBT+ issues when compared to their positive attitudes towards race and ethnicity. ASHFORD: if it ever does come up at our school it is dealt with a lot more seriously than homophobia [. . .] it’s like Black History month is celebrated in schools and anything to do with sexism and breaking down barriers and sexism is celebrated in schools all different religions celebrated in schools and then Pride month is completely ignored (-PROPRIETY) Many of the negative (and some positive) capacity examples used by the young people usually involved judging the behaviour and perceived capabilities of teachers. These examples reflect the participants’ perceptions that many teachers are unable to know how to address issues of gender and sexual diversity in schools. Significantly, the teachers make the same kinds of negative capacity judgements about themselves, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. In their interviews, the teachers’ capacity judgements of their own behaviour are mainly concerned with the differing levels of knowledge and awareness of homophobia and sexual diversity issues that teachers claim to have. So both students and teachers express concern over a perceived lack of knowledge and ability for adequately meeting the needs of a sexually diverse student population in their schools. When the teachers do express positive capacity, it usually refers to them reporting that they feel very knowledgeable about sexual diversity issues. Importantly, they attribute this to their life experiences outside school, rather than indicating that it is derived from any pre-service or in-service training. Another key similarity between the teachers’ and the young people’s use of capacity markers is that both sets of participants perceive silence and inaction to be problematic forms of behaviour in their schools and indicators of negative capacity. Such instantiations include phrases such as ‘it wasn’t really spoken about’ and ‘no one seemed to do anything about it’. Similar examples from the teacher interview data are included and discussed in Chapter 4. The negative capacity examples often function to construe denaturalization in the ToI framework (i.e. negative capacity equals being a less knowledgeable and therefore ‘less authentic’ teacher) as in some of the examples below. ASHLEY: some teachers just didn’t pay attention to it (-CAPACITY) and it would sort of become a process of I would have to keep going back to say I’m still having problems here Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 84 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth HANNAH: some people just don’t know how to handle it cos they don’t understand it (-CAPACITY) JACK: there was a gay lad in school and he did get bullied a lot about it and no one seemed to do anything about it (-CAPACITY) RUBY: schools just like it’s not really their problem it’s like something personal that they have to kind of deal with and they don’t really get that it’s part of their job (-CAPACITY; denaturalization) it’s just like literally your job STEPHEN: teachers have to be better educated (-CAPACITY) quite a lot of them are quite older so they don’t understand it (-CAPACITY) really ABBY: teachers just need to open their eyes (-CAPACITY) [. . .] like you’re teaching about this author you have no idea (-CAPACITY) what they’re actually writing about you need to get some education NICKY: I just go back to they need to be educated better (-CAPACITY) TODD: I got bullied and I told a teacher she didn’t do anything it was just rubbish (-CAPACITY) The veracity examples are mostly negative and predominantly refer to students’ perceived pretence on the part of teachers/the school that identities beyond heterosexuality and binary cisgender exist, as in the following examples: ALEX: just didn’t even mention it (-VERACITY; denaturalization) anything like that JOHN: when I was at school like we never it was never spoke about (-VERACITY; denaturalization) JASON: that’s all just like shoved under the carpet and ignored (-VERACITY; denaturalization) as much as possible ABBY: they’d just say like we do not tolerate homophobia and stuff they’d show like an emotional video never bring it up again (-VERACITY; denaturalization) every two years they’d do that TODD: they were silent on it cos they didn’t really talk about it (-VERACITY; denaturalization) The veracity markers construe a denial (denaturalization in ToI terms) of what the students themselves perceive to be the ‘truth’, i.e. that gender and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 85 sexuality are diverse, non-binary and unstable. Therefore, the veracity markers work to construct gender and sexual diversity in the schools as a kind of ‘untruthful absence’. Appreciation Figure 3.8 shows the distribution of positive and negative markers of the three main subcategories of appreciation. Figure 3.8 shows that valuation is by far the most frequently occurring subcategory of appreciation. The teachers in their interviews also deployed valuation as the most frequent subcategory of appreciation but they attributed positive and negative valuation to different phenomena from the young people. This will be discussed further in Chapter 4. Given that valuation is the appreciation subcategory that occurs the most in the data, it is worth examining what particular things, entities and processes in the school environment the young people actually evaluate in these occurrences. Table 3.4 provides a summary of the key entities which are valued positively and negatively. Out of the frequently occurring appraised items, school environment and school policies are often ascribed negative value in relation to gender and sexual diversity. The examples below show how the negative valuations of school environment and policies often materialized as a perceived lack of support and inaction. In particular, the students perceived their schools’ antibullying policies as being largely ineffective due to them not being acted on. 120 111 94 100 80 60 40 20 5 6 2 2 0 Reaction Composition Positive Valuation Negative Figure 3.8 Appreciation Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 86 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth Table 3.4 Items ascribed positive and negative valuation by the young people +Valuation Valuation LGBT youth group Specific teachers English Safe spaces University/college (in general terms) Being involved in women’s and/or LGBT+ organizations Drama Youth club Books with gay characters School security guards Music RE (Religious Education) Being at a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) Discussions about LGBT identities, relationships and issues Year 11 Art SRE School (in very general terms) School’s treatment of homophobic bullies PE Specific teachers Playground RE School policies Physics School’s handling of gender issues/gender segregation Exams School uniform policy Some of the teachers in the study (see Chapter 4) also commented on this perceived disparity between policy and practice. HANNAH: I just don’t think there was any support at all (-VALUATION) in our school JOHN: schools at the minute don’t really do everything they say (-VALUATION) like these policies and crap like that MARTIN: overall I think it [school bullying policy] was ineffective (-VALUATION) SRE also featured highly amongst the negatively valued phenomena by the young people. Given the high levels of dissatisfaction with SRE expressed by the young people, this is one of the reasons for focusing in more detail upon the subject of SRE in Chapters 5 and 6. Such negative valuations were often realized as students commenting on their experience of SRE as irrelevant and meaningless due to its exclusive focus on binary gender and heterosexuality. Even within the discourses of heterosexuality, the students perceived these to be restrictive in only focusing on physiology (for girls, this only involved periods), pregnancy and contraception. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 87 ASHLEY: there was never really a point that they spoke about anything other than the male development and the straight standard relationship (-VALUATION) ASHFORD: it’s like one of my friends at school is gay and I’m asexual so I was I’ve been sitting through these lessons which we’ve both been sitting through these lessons which just don’t apply to us so it’s just a waste of time and a waste of effort and money and stuff and we’re not actually learning what we need to learn (-VALUATION) ABBY: you would have thought that would be taught in a sexual health class and it really just never touched it like the only thing that they’d talk about was like periods (-VALUATION) NICKY: that’s literally all it is this is how you have safe sex if you don’t have safe sex then you’ll get pregnant and you could also get that and this and that is literally all I got taught (-VALUATION) TODD: it’s all about reproduction how’s it gonna work if like if it’s a vagina and another vagina or a penis and another penis (-VALUATION) Whilst SRE was overwhelmingly ascribed negative value, the subjects of English and Drama stood out as being positively valued by many of the young people. AMY: I think English is perhaps the best subject (+VALUATION) to introduce it through [. . .] it’s a good way of maybe celebrating differences so I think it’d be a perfect subject (+VALUATION) CARL: when I done Drama that was okay that was good (+VALUATION) I had a nice teacher as well Whilst Amy attributes the positive value of English to the nature of the subject itself (as being concerned with exploring ‘difference’ and encouraging discussion of topics), Carl attributes the positive value of Drama to the Drama teacher, rather than to the subject itself. Valuations of individual teachers are also frequent throughout the data, although some teachers are valued positively whilst others are ascribed negative value. Because teachers are ‘people’, the appreciation markers are often double-coded with judgement as evaluations of teachers’ behaviour. The frequent evaluations of individual teachers show that they play a significant part in the school lives and experiences of the young people. Again, a key finding is that the behaviour of individual teachers is Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 88 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth seen as being able to ‘make or break’ the young people’s experiences of gender and sexual diversity in particular school subjects. This finding supports previous work by Ellis and High (2004) who found that responses from young LGB people in their study revealed the power of individual teachers in the pedagogic relationship and how this facilitated positive attitudes towards sexual diversity. Amongst processes and phenomena that were frequently ascribed negative value, binary constructions of gender in schools were commented on by a number of the young people. ASHFORD: another thing that schools need to change is segregating or like putting people in different things because of their gender (-VALUATION) ASHFORD: girls’changing room right next to it they’re on completely different sides of the school and even our PE lessons are quite often segregated which is ridiculous (-VALUATION) Examples such as those above reveal how the young people expressed an overwhelmingly critical attitude towards what they perceived to be gender ‘segregation’ along the lines of binary sex. Therefore, the students themselves experienced a relationship between gender and sexual diversity – if gender was restricted, then that also made sexuality restricted and heavily policed in the school context. PE was referred to as a subject in which sexuality was experienced as heavily restricted as a result of binary gender segregation. This supports work by Anderson (2013) and Rivers (2011) who have argued that the principle cause of homophobic bullying is actually sporting abilities rather than sexual orientation itself. MARTIN: I was bullied and beaten at sports [UNHAPPINESS] I have a phobia [INSECURITY] of sports I’ve got numerous scars on my head from sports equipment I’ve got one on my eyebrow from a cricket bat it was people who just targeted me in something TAD: I’ve always had an issue with physical education because it’s a very intense sport it’s always the boys are doing football it’s very aggressive [-VALUATION] and very and as big as a person that as I am I’m very feeble very spiritual very calm person and in those kinds of environments I’m kind of ‘whoa is the ball gonna hit me’you know [INSECURITY] so that’s always been a touchy [-VALUATION] subject for me FAY: in PE it comes up in like the sporty area and there’s more of it because there’s quite a few other kids in Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Appraisal: Analysis 89 the class and the teacher can’t watch every one of them at the same time [-CAPACITY] so yea so in like the sporty area it it’s not the best [-VALUATION] JOHN: I hated PE I think I don’t like PE cuz it was proper like boy-ey do you know what I mean [UNHAPPINESS] like all the jocks and stuff like that and I’m just not like that I was the one that just sat on the bench and never did anything cuz I hated it [UNHAPPINESS] and it makes me feel uncomfortable [INSECURITY] as well because you know like when somebody’s like proper [. . .] you know some chaps right when they’re playing a game of basketball football whatever they’d get proper competitive and I hate that [UNHAPPINESS] In the valuation subcategory of appreciation, there were many occurrences of irrealis positive valuation in which the young people ascribed positive value to imagined or hypothetical phenomena and processes. These irrealis examples are a useful indication of what young LGBT+ people themselves believe would help to make schools more inclusive and accepting of gender and sexuality diversity. High up in the category of irrealis positive valuation are the inclusion of explicit discussions and conversations about gender and sexuality identity in school: ASHLEY: I think that it would be good (irrealis +VALUATION) to implement discussion of sexuality and gender identity in any kind of conversation about sexual health Other students also value such discussions but not as explicit topics. Instead they place positive value on the hypothetical scenarios of gender and sexuality issues becoming a normal part of everyday conversations in school spaces: HANNAH: when you do work around characters individually that would be a part of it so I think that would it would just raise awareness or it would just make it more everyday or more kind of normal (irrealis +VALUATION) NICKY: make it visible and available rather than being like this is what goes on in the world cause that’s what we got as people that aren’t sure of their sexuality we got the whole straight thing rammed down our necks so it wouldn’t necessarily be nice for us to be like right everyone’s gay now here you Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 90 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth go this is gay education and stuff like that but something that’s just ready and available for them if they do want to kind of explore (irrealis authentication/irrealis +VALUATION) A final key phenomenon which is ascribed irrealis positive valuation is the notion of ‘safe spaces’ in school. Whilst some of the examples refer to the explicit inclusion of spaces within school in which LGBT+-identified young people can go and be guaranteed not to experience harassment or discrimination, other examples refer to turning existing spaces which are considered to be currently ‘unsafe’ into safer spaces. The most frequently cited of such spaces were PE changing rooms and the playground. ASHLEY: I think that in terms of policy there should really have been some safer spaces (irrealis +VALUATION) ASHFORD: what’d be ideal (irrealis +VALUATION) would be like cubicle changing rooms like in a swimming pool FAY: the one place that can be the worst place [VALUATION] for a kid if they’re a bit different if they’re bisexual or a lesbian or gay or trans or anything or if they’re just completely different [-NORMALITY] the one place is the playground literally that is the one place where they have to be quite well for me constantly moving around different areas I even had to sneak out of school when I was younger because I hated [UNHAPPINESS] being there Discussion The main findings from the ToI analysis presented and discussed in this chapter are, firstly, that illegitimation and distinction are the most frequently occurring tactics. The distinction patterns of use suggest that many of the young people experience feelings of difference in schools and consider themselves to be treated differently as a direct result of their gender and sexuality identities. In the ‘realness’ dimension of the ToI framework, the young people repeatedly recognize and report on a lack of authentication practices around gender and sexual diversity in their schools. The lack of authentication of LGBT+ identities at a micro level results in illegitimation of anything outside the heteronormative at a more macro level. Denaturalization, lack of authentication and occurrences of irrealis authentication are often expressed as marked absences. On the other hand, within the power dimension, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 Discussion 91 discriminatory practices around gender and sexual diversity are seen to be authorized. The young people provide many specific examples of this (i.e. students not being reprimanded for homophobic language and other behaviour). Within the authorization and illegitimation tactics, silence and inaction are identified by the young people as significant problems in how they experience their gender and sexual identity in the school context. Findings from the appraisal analysis reveal that the young people in the study report experiencing high levels of unhappiness and insecurity which they relate directly to the experience of identifying as LGBT+ in school. Any positive affect was attributed mainly to actions and behaviour of individual teachers and organizations and people outside the school itself (e.g. youth groups). Within the judgement attitudinal subsystem, teachers were often attributed negative capacity as a way of evaluating their perceived in/abilities for dealing with issues around gender and sexual diversity. The negative capacity markers often co-occur with unhappiness and insecurity suggesting that a lack of capacity on the part of teachers is felt to result in negative affect for the young people themselves. Negative propriety also occurs relatively frequently, again with the young people evaluating the moral behaviour of individual teachers as a key part of their narratives of personal experience. Given the amount of evaluative language that is focused around teachers, the professional role of the teacher is clearly a highly significant and impactful one for young people identifying as LGBT+. Teachers were discussed using evaluative language much more than peers and family members, for example, and were therefore afforded a high priority in terms of affecting young people’s feelings and own behaviours in schools. This warrants investigating the attitudes and behaviours of teachers and other kinds of educators in more detail in Chapter 4. The patterns of appreciation show there is much positive valuation of the subject of English and of specific teachers involved in working with the young people participants. Conversely, there were high levels of negative valuation attributed to the subject of SRE, the schools’ handling of homophobic bullying, the subject of PE and specific teachers that the young people had contact with in school. Given that some individual teachers were ascribed positive value, this again suggests that the attitudes and behaviours of individual teachers can make a significant difference to the school experiences of LGBT+-identified young people. The markers of irrealis positive valuation provide potentially useful information about what the young LGBT+ people would find helpful for increasing their levels of positive affect in the school environment, namely, the inclusion of explicit discussions and conversations about gender and sexuality identity in school and the provision of LGBT+ ‘safe spaces’. The combined analysis of evaluative language and the linguistic Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004 92 The School Experiences of LGBT+ Youth construction of identification processes enables a detailed examination and understanding of how these young people experience being LGBT+ in their school environments. In the following chapter, I use the same analytical frameworks of ToI and appraisal to investigate the school experiences of sexual diversity from the perspective of educators. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 104.223.120.123, on 25 Apr 2020 at 21:17:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316411353.004