Who Wants To Say “Gay?” Public Opinion About LGBT Issues in the Curriculum
General Information
Title
Who Wants To Say “Gay?” Public Opinion About LGBT Issues in the Curriculum
Author
Morgan Polikoff, Michael Fienberg, Daniel Silver, Marshall Garland, Anna Saavedra, Amie Rapaport
Publication Type
Working paper
Outlet
Annenberg, Brown University
Year
2023
Abstract
Public schools are currently a source of major political conflict, specifically with regard to issues related to
LGBT representation in the curriculum. We report on a large nationally representative survey of American
households focusing on their views on what LGBT topics are and should be taught, and what LGBT-themed
books should be assigned and available. We report results overall and broken down by demographic, partisan,
and geographic variables. We find that Americans report that they largely do not know what topics are being
taught in schools, but they do not think LGBT topics are being taught to elementary children. There is
widespread opposition to teaching about LGBT issues in elementary school, with more mixed support in high
school. Voters are much more opposed to LGBT-themed books being assigned to students than available to
them. There are very large splits in attitudes toward LGBT issues in schools, especially along political and
religious lines and across states and counties based on partisan lean. We discuss implications of these findings
for education policy and urge greater understanding of Americans' views about controversial topics in the
curriculum.