Teachers need more training in working with transgender students, Flinders University researchers find

MALE teachers have less positive attitudes towards transgender students than females and are not as comfortable working with them, SA research shows.

Teachers need more training to support transgender students, research shows.

• Parents want minimum age for kids to change gender identity at school
• New SA Education Department policy on transgender students

MALE teachers have less positive attitudes towards transgender students than females and are not as comfortable working with them, South Australian research shows.

And teachers who have worked with transgender students before are not always more confident about caring for them than less experienced colleagues.

Instead, Flinders University researchers have found confidence is more closely tied to training — or having a transgender friend or family member — prompting calls for more professional development.

In the first Australian study of its kind at a primary school level, 180 teachers and student teachers were surveyed to find out the capacity of schools to support trans students.

Associate Professor Damien Riggs said men “struggle more with what it means to be transgender”.

But rather than any intrinsic difference between men and women, he said it was the result of “societal expectations” on men.

“It’s not as though men’s views are fixed,” Prof Riggs said, adding training was as effective for men as women.

A full breakdown of the survey has been published in the latest edition of Teaching and Teacher Education journal, after initial survey results were included in a Flinders University report last year.

Overall the participants had positive attitudes, with strong support shown for the need for training on handling harassment of trans students, allowing them to wear the uniform they feel most comfortable in, and allowing students to form Gay-Straight Alliance or similar groups at school.

The survey was conducted before the SA Education Department introduced an explicit policy on how schools should support transgender students at the end of last year.

The policy includes trans students using the toilets and wearing uniform of their choice.

Prof Riggs backed the policy and said schools generally worked well with students who wanted to change gender identity. But school responses were sometimes “reactive” when staff had not been trained prior to cases arising.

“The next thing will be for them to roll out training to make sure teachers can implement that policy,” he said.

The department said voluntary training could be accessed through the Safe Schools program run by SHINE SA.

The same Flinders researchers angered conservative groups last year for introducing a junior primary class to transgender themed picture books, and advocating primary schools access Safe Schools, which is generally aimed at the secondary level.

Prof Riggs said the objective had been to find which books had messages young children could understand. The researchers had always advocated use of age appropriate resources, he said.