| This study documents and critically inquires into the potential of safe school legislation and polices to make schools "safe" for sexual minority students. The study reports how "queer" students describe that "safety" is pursued at their schools, how the students themselves conceptualize "safety" and then considers how these insights might lead to a re-conceptualization of current law and policy approaches. The results are based primarily upon three months spent by the researcher conducting interviews and reporting on observations in the field at ten high schools in Toronto.This study focuses on documenting and interpreting the daily experiences of "queer" students, and their advocates, as one means of building a critical analysis of "safe school" legislation and policy. The results of the study suggest that the law of the state may be the most visible, public and high profile form of regulation, but that "law on the books" may not be the most important determinant of students' experiences---and that the effects of legislation and policy need to be measured rather than assumed. While this study provides ample evidence for this conclusion, the potential of legislation and policy to construct safe and equitable schools was confirmed and includes prescriptive proposals.Three central themes emerged. First, at most schools there was a disconnect between how queer students defined "safety" and how they believed their schools understood and pursued "safety". Most students felt that "safety" had to be defined broadly, in conjunction with "doing equity" in schools, and not just in terms of security, surveillance and control---which is how most students experienced "safety" day to day. Secondly, in the view of informants, pursuing "safety" as "equity" meant addressing the "heteronormativity" of schools---which many students viewed as being just as threatening to their personal identities and sense of safety than bullying or any fear of physical or verbal harassment. Third, the effectiveness of legislation and policies to address the safety concerns of sexual minority students, even when broadly defined, was complicated by other informal influences present in "youth culture". These other forms of ordering interacted with each other and complicated how effectively legislation and policies were able to penetrate "youth culture", if at all. |
