Homophobia high

Classrooms become labs for a multi-university
study on attitudes towards LGBT students

SEEING, HEARING AND DISCUSSING TROUBLES:
Line Chamberland

by ANDREA ZANIN

Line Chamberland, a sociology and women’s studies professor at UQÀM, is launching a groundbreaking research project on homophobia in schools this month and next in high schools and CEGEPs across the province.

“The project is part of a program financed by the Ministry of Education on school persistence and academic success,” explains Chamberland. “They’re becoming aware of the problem and seeing that homophobia in schools is not only a social problem—it has consequences on the schooling of young people in Quebec. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) students may be victimized and may drop out of school because of it. Also, many students who aren’t LGBT suffer from homophobia because they are labelled as gay and lesbian and then made fun of.” Chamberland’s research team includes Bill Ryan of McGill, Gilbert Émond of Concordia and Joanne Otis, also of UQÀM.

The three-year project is also financed by a Social Sciences and Human Resources Canada grant that’s allowing Chamberland to take the study outside the big cities and conduct it in both official languages. “We can guess that homophobia also exists outside Montreal and Quebec City. The official goal is to develop a precise description of it, and to analyze it. Is it different between big cities and remote regions? Is it worse? Also, what is the difference between men and women? Lesbian and bisexual female students may experience things differently than gay and bisexual male students, so we want to do comparisons.”

Going to the source

The first part of the project, a questionnaire, is addressed to students in secondary schools and CEGEPs. “Most of the research about homophobia in schools works with respondents who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning and trans young people,” says Chamberland. “Our survey is different because we have a sample of schools and within them a sample of classes, and the survey is for all those students. Our idea is that everybody can see homophobic behaviour and hear homophobic comments.”

The team will also interview lesbian, gay, bi and questioning young people who have suffered homophobic experiences, to see how that has affected their relationship with the school, teachers and other kids. Young trans people will be interviewed in a separate section of the project. “If I included them in the homophobia questionnaire, I wouldn’t learn anything that specifically concerns trans people,” says Chamberland. “So I decided to go with qualitative methodologies to focus on trans-identified people.”

The Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ) has collaborated with Chamberland to help gain the support of teachers’ unions, professional guidance counsellors’ groups and CEGEP directors. “The difficult part is to get into the secondary schools—that’s hard!”

She cites a long list of administrative approvals that must be obtained: the Ministry of Education, regional management, school boards, individual school principals and parent-teacher associations. At every step, someone may refuse or protest, and unless someone advocates for the study—with all the personal risks that may involve—it may get turfed.

“Lots of teachers and school principals have said, ‘We know about homophobia but we don’t know what to do.’ Teachers don’t know how to intervene in class to stop homophobic comments; they are afraid of being seen as gay. Those who are gay and lesbian are afraid to come out if they are not supported by other teachers or by principals. So nobody’s moving. Everybody’s afraid of everybody. More and more people are aware of homophobia, but putting them together to do something, that’s a bit harder.”

Scant and scattered resources

When Chamberland began, she intended to develop tools to help them do something, but she discovered that various organizations—GRIS Montréal, the Coalition Jeunesse Montréal Contre l’Homophobie and several others—already offer resources. “But they produce 200 copies of something and then it’s over, there’s no continuity, there’s no distribution, the tools are not known in other parts of the province. So my goal now is to list all the tools in Quebec and in Canada.”

The list will include best-practice information gleaned from yet more interviews, this time with representatives from schools that already have anti-homophobia policies and programs.

At the conclusion of the study in 2010, Chamberland plans to have the results and the resource list published on the Education Ministry’s Web site. “It’s not action research in the strict sense, but it’s research we hope will have some impact on what’s being done.”

FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE PROJECT,
CALL (514) 987-3000, EXT. 1203. IF YOU
ARE A GAY, LESBIAN OR BISEXUAL
YOUTH AND WOULD LIKE TO BE
INTERVIEWED ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES,
VISIT AUDREYTAVOIXCOMPTE.
BLOGSPOT.COM OR
CONTACT AUDREY AT
TA.VOIX@YAHOO.CA. IF YOU ARE A
TRANS YOUTH, VISIT
TRANSSCOLAIRE.BLOGSPOT.COM
OR CONTACT NATALIE AT
TRANSSCOLAIRE@GMAIL.COM.