Papers by Victoria Rawlings
The social determinants of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth suicidality in England: a mixed methods study
Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer have elevated rates of... more Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer have elevated rates of suicidality. Despite the increased risk, there is a paucity of research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer help-seeking and suicidality. We report on a UK sequential exploratory, two-stage, mixed-method study. Stage 1 involved 29 online and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth aged 16–25 years old. Stage 2 utilised an online youth questionnaire employing a community based sampling strategy (n = 789). Results indicated that participants only asked for help when they reached a crisis point because they were normalising their emotional distress. Those who self-harmed, had attempted or planned suicide or had experience of abuse related to their sexuality or gender were most likely to seek help.
Results suggested that the reluctance to seek help was due to three interconnecting factors: negotiating sexuality, gender, mental health and age norms; being unable to talk about emotions; and coping and self-reliance. Policies aiming to prevent lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth suicide recognise that norms and normalising processes connected to sexual orientation and gender identity are additional difficulties that youth have accessing mental health support.
Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, Aug 24, 2015
In this article we take off from critiques of psychological
and school bullying typologies as cr... more In this article we take off from critiques of psychological
and school bullying typologies as creating problematic
binary categories of bully and victim and neglecting sociocultural aspects of gender and sexuality. We review
bullying research informed by Judith Butler’s theories of
discursive performativity, which help us to understand how
subjectification works through performative repetitions of
heterosexual gender norms. We then build on these insights
drawing on the feminist new materialist approach of Karen
Barad’s posthuman performativity, which we argue enlarges our scope of inquiry in profound ways. Barad’s theories suggest we move from psychological models of the inter-personal, and from Butlerian notions of discursive subjectification, to ideas of discursive-material intra-action to consider the more-thanhuman relationalities of bullying. Throughout the article, we demonstrate the approach using examples from qualitative research with teens in the UK and Australia, exploring nonhuman agentic matter such as space, objects and time as shaping the constitution of gender and sexual bullying events. Specifically we examine the discursive-material agential intra-actions of skirts and hair through which ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ and‘slut’ and ‘gay’ materialise in school spacetimematterings. In our conclusion we briefly suggest how the new materialism helps to shift the frame of attention and responses informing gendered intra-actions in schools.
In the last decade, discourses of bullying and harassment have featured prominently within educat... more In the last decade, discourses of bullying and harassment have featured prominently within educational policy and administration, academic research, popular media, and
public dialogue. The ways in which these have been framed has generally been consistent with an individualistic, behavioural perspective that distinctly outlines a ‘bully’ and a ‘victim’- each with specific attributes and performances. This approach arguably simplifies and reduces complex socio-cultural aspects surrounding young people and the wider communities that they are situated within, while simultaneously preventing a deconstruction of gendered, classed and racialised meanings within ‘bullying’ frameworks.
This chapter proposes utilising a post-structural feminist approach to re-frame ideas of bullying and harassment as only one indicator of a wider framework of gender regulation. The role of compulsory heterosexuality and the subsequent binary
expectations of femininity and masculinity in the production of this regulation will be reviewed in consideration with wider literature. In consideration of these aspects, the concept of a gender regulation framework will be examined to allow more effective exploration of violence in schools.
Conference Presentations by Victoria Rawlings
This symposium examines dissonances between anti-bullying discourses and educational equity for L... more This symposium examines dissonances between anti-bullying discourses and educational equity for LGBTQ+ youth. "Anti-bullying" is the ubiquitous remedy for school safety problems, and yet anti-bullying discourse does not capture the complexities of heteronormative, racist, and ableist identity policing experienced by LGBTQ+ youth. They experience policing through biased speech, curricular violence, online interactions, and overt harassment-all of which are manifestations of intersecting oppressive ideologies that discursively organize ideals of masculinity and femininity. Collectively, these papers confront taken-for-granted understanding of educational inequities experienced by LGBTQ+ youth and argue for research, policy, and practice that account for the relationships between cultural systems of power-particularly along lines of gender and sexuality-and LGBTQ students' inequitable access to a safe and affirming education. (120)
Bullying research and policy has been largely “gender blind” (Ringrose & Renold, 2010) – failing ... more Bullying research and policy has been largely “gender blind” (Ringrose & Renold, 2010) – failing to note the socio-cultural context of bullying and ways in which exclusion and violence are often rooted in reinforcing “rules” for heteronormative gender (Payne & Smith, 2013). Bullying research attending to gender comes largely from psychology and reinforces gendered stereotypes rather than exploring the policing of gender as a primary function of bullying behavior. Using data from a range of research studies, papers in this symposium explore ways heteronormative expectations for gender compliance are deeply rooted in school culture, reinforced by students and teachers. We explore the discursive limitations around “who” students are allowed to be, as well as possibilities for rupturing the dominant gender order.
Current research and policy conversations on school climate and bullying predominantly focus on s... more Current research and policy conversations on school climate and bullying predominantly focus on student victimization; correlations between victimization and negative psychological, social, and educational outcomes; and schools’ responsibility to protect vulnerable students. These conversations reduce complexities of peer-to-peer aggression to “anti- social behaviour where one student wields power over [a victim]” (Walton, 2011, p.131). In this symposium we argue overt violence termed “bullying” is the surface-level effect of heteronormative cultures that provide social benefits for policing non-normative sexualities and gender expressions (Payne, 2007). Targeting others for their failure to “do” gender and (hetero)sexuality “right” is a learned mechanism for improving or affirming one’s own social status as well as re-affirming the “rightness” and “naturalness” of the gender “rules”. Those outside the hegemonic norm are “policed by their peers and denied access to social power and popularity, while those who do conform are ‘celebrated’” (Payne & Smith, 2012, p.188; Ngo, 2010). Papers in this symposium seek to contribute to these debates by exploring different approaches to understanding the ways in which heteronormative expectations for gender compliance circulate through school spaces across international contexts of USA, UK and Australia.
Public Scholarship by Victoria Rawlings
Crossroads program: should we teach children that gender identity is fluid? Here’s what the research says
Safe Schools review findings: experts respond
After a three-week debacle, the findings of the review into the opt-in Safe Schools Coalition pro... more After a three-week debacle, the findings of the review into the opt-in Safe Schools Coalition program are out. The review has proposed to limit the anti-bullying program to secondary schools only.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham said:
"We will be making it clear that the program resources are fit for delivery in secondary school environments only."
It found that a number of the resources had lessons and content not necessarily appropriate for all children and has called for schools to seek parental consent for student participation in program lessons or activities.
Over the past week, Nationals MP George Christensen and other backbenchers have voiced their concerns over how the review was conducted. A petition – which went missing for a period of time – has reportedly been handed to the prime minister and signed by 43 of 81 backbenchers. It calls for Safe Schools funding to be suspended until a “full-blown” parliamentary inquiry is held.
The review’s also caused fractures in the government’s frontbench. While former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for the program to be scrapped, former education minister Christopher Pyne has said it should stay. 
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Papers by Victoria Rawlings
Results suggested that the reluctance to seek help was due to three interconnecting factors: negotiating sexuality, gender, mental health and age norms; being unable to talk about emotions; and coping and self-reliance. Policies aiming to prevent lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth suicide recognise that norms and normalising processes connected to sexual orientation and gender identity are additional difficulties that youth have accessing mental health support.
and school bullying typologies as creating problematic
binary categories of bully and victim and neglecting sociocultural aspects of gender and sexuality. We review
bullying research informed by Judith Butler’s theories of
discursive performativity, which help us to understand how
subjectification works through performative repetitions of
heterosexual gender norms. We then build on these insights
drawing on the feminist new materialist approach of Karen
Barad’s posthuman performativity, which we argue enlarges our scope of inquiry in profound ways. Barad’s theories suggest we move from psychological models of the inter-personal, and from Butlerian notions of discursive subjectification, to ideas of discursive-material intra-action to consider the more-thanhuman relationalities of bullying. Throughout the article, we demonstrate the approach using examples from qualitative research with teens in the UK and Australia, exploring nonhuman agentic matter such as space, objects and time as shaping the constitution of gender and sexual bullying events. Specifically we examine the discursive-material agential intra-actions of skirts and hair through which ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ and‘slut’ and ‘gay’ materialise in school spacetimematterings. In our conclusion we briefly suggest how the new materialism helps to shift the frame of attention and responses informing gendered intra-actions in schools.
public dialogue. The ways in which these have been framed has generally been consistent with an individualistic, behavioural perspective that distinctly outlines a ‘bully’ and a ‘victim’- each with specific attributes and performances. This approach arguably simplifies and reduces complex socio-cultural aspects surrounding young people and the wider communities that they are situated within, while simultaneously preventing a deconstruction of gendered, classed and racialised meanings within ‘bullying’ frameworks.
This chapter proposes utilising a post-structural feminist approach to re-frame ideas of bullying and harassment as only one indicator of a wider framework of gender regulation. The role of compulsory heterosexuality and the subsequent binary
expectations of femininity and masculinity in the production of this regulation will be reviewed in consideration with wider literature. In consideration of these aspects, the concept of a gender regulation framework will be examined to allow more effective exploration of violence in schools.
Conference Presentations by Victoria Rawlings
Public Scholarship by Victoria Rawlings
Education Minister Simon Birmingham said:
"We will be making it clear that the program resources are fit for delivery in secondary school environments only."
It found that a number of the resources had lessons and content not necessarily appropriate for all children and has called for schools to seek parental consent for student participation in program lessons or activities.
Over the past week, Nationals MP George Christensen and other backbenchers have voiced their concerns over how the review was conducted. A petition – which went missing for a period of time – has reportedly been handed to the prime minister and signed by 43 of 81 backbenchers. It calls for Safe Schools funding to be suspended until a “full-blown” parliamentary inquiry is held.
The review’s also caused fractures in the government’s frontbench. While former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for the program to be scrapped, former education minister Christopher Pyne has said it should stay.