Supportive Classroom Practices

In contemporary K–12 and postsecondary classrooms, habitual structures and routines enact assumptions about gender. For many transgender and/or nonbinary students, these structures and routines can be barriers to participation and well-being in the classroom. The supportive classroom practices discussed below are not about curriculum or pedagogy but pertain to aspects of classroom life that are often overlooked as barriers, precisely because they are routine. These practices are attendance, student introductions, and grouping and pairing. The following sections engage each of these aspects in turn, identifying how they can be a barrier to transgender and/or nonbinary students and suggesting how this may be avoided.