Recommendations: We recommend that this unit of study is taught toward the end of the school year, when you’ve had an opportunity to get to know and to build trust and community with your students. This will allow you to gauge the level of maturity of the students and prepare them for what might be considered a controversial topic or issue the students have not previously considered. Communicate with your school administrator(s) and let them know you plan to teach LGBTQ content. Find out what the school’s policy is on teaching about gender diversity. Parents want to be informed about the course/class content. Therefore, it is especially important to let parents know when you will be covering content that might be considered sensitive. Find out if your school and school district has “opt-out” and “opt-in” policies and the best way to implement these rules. Craft a letter that outlines the content for the LGBTQ unit of study. Ask the school principal to review the letter and approve the content, before sending the letter to parents.
Terms: Prejudice and discrimination are related to each other.
Prejudice is a bias against or negative feelings toward a person or their membership in certain groups. Prejudice is "a set of attitudes which causes, supports, or justifies discrimination.”
Discrimination is an action which is an unequal and unfair treatment directed against someone (Farley, 2012, p. 20).
Also see Grant, Mottet, & Tanis (2011), Injustice at Every Turn on this website in the “Reading List/Resources” section.