Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools: A Text For Teachers, Counselors, And Administrators

By Arthur Lipkin

Book Overview

Scholarship on homosexuality, gay and lesbian identities, history, and culture came to universities too late for most elementary and secondary school educators, leaving them unprepared to deal with these subjects. Moreover, some teacher education faculty still neglect these topics out of moral scruple, fear, or inattention to new research and practice. Yet teacher education and training must incorporate these issues, if only because the plight of homosexual adolescents has become increasingly apparent. Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools, written by veteran teacher and university instructor Arthur Lipkin, provides a foundation in gay/lesbian studies and offers models for equity, inclusion, and school reform. It is designed to help teachers, administrators, counselors, and policymakers understand the significance of gay and lesbian issues in education; to aid communication between gay and lesbian students and their families and schools; to facilitate the integration of gay and lesbian families into the school community; and to promote the inclusion of gay and lesbian curricula in a range of disciplines. This book is also designed to promote the healthy development of all students through reducing bigotry, self-hatred, and violence. Bringing together thirteen topics related to homosexuality and education, Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools makes the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience part of a democratic multicultural vision.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081332534X
• ISBN13: 9780813325347
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Westview Press
• Length: 520 Pages
• Weight: 1.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

This Book Could Reduce Teen Murder, Suicide and Misery

This book is a must read for everyone concerned with the issues of gay youths in our families, schools and communities. It is very well researched and documented, with hundreds of footnotes and references, by a person who is three ways qualified: he is gay, he was a public high school teacher for 20 years, and he has been a scholar at Harvard for several years. Despite being scholarly, it is highly readable, with many quotations and examples. I especially appreciate its quiet, thoughtful, judicious tone even though it is about a highly emotional and controversial set of issues.Lipkin's book should be read by all gay young people and their parents, by friends and neighbors, and by teachers and administrators and others who set policy for and provide guidance for our young people, both gay and straight. Yes, it is expensive (the paperback version was announced long ago but is nowhere in sight, so don't wait for it). But it is really inexpensive if it leads to one less teen suicide or murder, or to a reduction in gay bashing incidents and personal misery. If you cannot afford it for yourself, get your library to buy it, read it, and then tell others in your community about it.