NEWS: Announcing the launch of RISE Project on 2SLGBTQ+-expansive Teacher Education

I’m writing to share the exciting news of the launch of the RISE Project on 2SLGBTQ+-Expansive Teacher Education (https://riseproject.ca/)!

On behalf of the research team, I’d invite you to take a look at the website and help us to share this resource widely!

We’ve attached a two-page promo flyer in PDF format that can help spread the word among your faculty, colleagues working in teacher education, and anyone else you think may be interested in 2SLGBTQ+-expansive teacher education.

  • The RISE Project on 2SLGBTQ+-Expansive Teacher Education developed out of the SSHRC-funded research program of Dr. Catherine Taylor and extensive large-scale research on 2SLGBTQ+ K–12 education in Canada. This research demonstrates that school system stakeholders and teachers want to support 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion in education, but often lack the professional knowledge to effectively do so.
  • Recognizing this knowledge-to-practice gap, the RISE Project website was conceived as a starting point to provoke thinking about ways to queer teacher education and classrooms through evidence-based resources, pedagogical orientations, and curricular modules focusing on core content areas of B.Ed. programs.
  • Based on the RISE Project’s foundational research into approaches to 2SLGBTQ+-engaged content in teacher education programs, the research team recognized that practices focusing solely on countering problematic attitudes, correcting harmful practices and seeking inclusion of 2SLGBTQ+ people were limited in significant ways; no one approach to 2SLGBTQ+ is exhaustive and comprehensive. Inclusive education cannot be reduced to a transactional or “check list” approach.
  • As a result, the RISE Project sought to engage a wider range of transformative approaches to address safety and inclusion, while also seeking to queer pedagogies and practices and develop Indigiqueering approaches foregrounding Indigenous knowledges and understandings of sexuality and gender. The RISE Project website uses the language of 2SLGBTQ+-expansive education to signal these approaches are intended not just to seek more inclusion in an otherwise untransformed curriculum but to challenge normative understandings of gender and sexuality—and ideas about what education can accomplish in building a more socially-just and diverse world.

If you have any questions about the project, please contact us through the RISE site (https://riseproject.ca/contact).

Two-page promo flyer