Episode Eight: Dr. Gavin Murphy, TCD, Dr. Declan Fahie, UCD and Bella Fitzpatrick, Shout Out. “LGBTQI+ Issues in Education”
Let's Talk About Sociology of EducationShow Notes
My guests in this episode are Dr. Gavin Murphy, Dr. Declan Fahie and Bella Fitzpatrick.
Dr. Gavin Murphy is an Assistant Professor in Education in the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin. As a post primary school teacher Gavin worked as a languages teacher. He was introduced to Sociology of Education both during his initial teacher education and before that, while studying languages, when he studied sociolinguistics. This sensitised him to the idea of questioning ‘taken for granted assumptions’. He mentions Mills, who invites us in our sociological imagination to make the familiar strange and how as an Irish teacher, that kind of minority perspective he had about making the familiar strange was in relation to language first and foremost. Gavin’s main area of research interest and work in his current role focuses on educational policy and leadership. Dr. Declan Fahie is a former primary school teacher, he has taught in West Dublin, the UK and in Sicily and he is currently Director of School Placement and Director of Research in UCD. Declan was a teacher for almost 20 years working in primary schools and mostly in West Dublin. He spent a lot of his teaching career teaching Junior infants. He mentions how four and five year olds were his audience for many, many years in a job that he absolutely loved. Declan has taught Sociology of Education, to PME student teachers, at both primary and post-primary level. His Master's thesis was on the experiences of lesbian and gay teachers. Bella Fitzpatrick worked initially as a volunteer at Shout Out (www.shoutout.ie) for seven years and became its first ever employee in 2017 and is now CEO of the organisation and an LGBTQ+ educator. Bella believes that sociology includes the study of society, human social behaviours, patterns of social relationships, social interaction. Bella describes constantly trying to get people to be a bit more fluid in their thinking about things they think are just set in stone and think more broadly and more inclusion overall. In this episode we discuss LGBTQI+ issues in Education for teachers, students and school communities from a number of different perspectives including; social justice, equity, inclusion, equality of opportunity, representation in the teaching profession of and for LGBTQI+ teachers and contemporary, practical LGBTQI+ student issues and challenges. My guests articulate a broad variety of views on inclusion and diversity within the teaching profession. We explore key challenges and barriers, such as progression, for LGBTQI+ teachers within the profession. We also look at opportunities for LGBTQI+ teachers, the visibility and inclusion of the diverse LGBTQI+ community within our education system, the opportunities for all teachers and school leaders to be allies to the LGBTQI+ members of the school community, and the impact of Covid on the LGBTQI+ community over the past 15 months. This is a really informative, interesting and engaging episode from three really inspiring contributors. Some of the stand out points for me from this podcast episode, include how the concepts of empathy, tolerance, acceptance, belonging, compassion and care are so critical in working together to address LGBTQI+ issues in education. Gavin describes his first research engagement with the whole question of educational leadership research, policy (specifically, the National LGBTI Youth Strategy) and LGBTQ+ questions, which was the interconnection between our own researcher subjectivity and educational leadership research and why when we talk about leading, there was this glaring absence compared to all of the other topics of social justice. There was much research in leadership and policy fields where there was economic challenge and ethnically diverse communities, and he questioned why wasn’t there more to talk about leading in respect to gender and sexual diversity and expression. He also articulates a Sustainable Development Goals point of view and how there
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