If you’re a student at a participating school, you can take part in the project in a number of ways.
- By working as a co-researcher
- By responding to the whole-school questionnaire
- By taking part in focus groups
Student co-researcher
An important part of this project is that it’s community-led. We know that the people who know most about what, how and why things happen at school are the students and teachers that live it everyday. That’s why we want students and teachers to help us deeply understand what it’s like at each school.
Over the duration of the project, student co-researchers at each school will meet between ten and fifteen times before or after school (outside of learning time). Overall, commitment to this group will be for about two two-hour meetings per term, over three years. In these meetings, you will help shape how the research takes place, understand the data, and to inform what kind of resources the school invests in- whether it be books, professional learning for teachers, posters, guest speakers, or other aspects that you think might make your school a more inclusive, welcoming place.
We know the value and importance of co-researchers to this project, and student co-researchers will receive gift cards to the value of $20 for each meeting hour throughout the project. In addition, as a co-researcher, you will learn and apply research, analysis and critical problem-solving skills that you can take on to future endeavours, or continue to apply in your life, both at school and beyond.
If you’re interested in becoming a co-researcher at your school, you’ll need to submit an expression of interest to take part. Your expression of interest can be in video, audio or written form, and just needs to explain why you’d like to work on the project.
Whole-school questionnaire
At participating schools, every student from years 7 to 11 will be invited to take part in a fifteen-minute online questionnaire on two occasions- once in year 1 of the study, and once in year 2. The questionnaire will ask questions about you, including your age, gender, religion and sexuality; questions about how you feel at school; and some questions about situations that might arise at school and how you think other students and teachers might react. There are also some questions about how often certain offensive words are used at your school, and how supportive you think your school is about students and other people who might be diverse in their gender or sexuality. All of your answers will be totally anonymous- they will not be linked to you. You’ll be able to do this questionnaire on your phone or other device, so you can keep your responses private.
The results of this questionnaire will give a ‘snapshot’ of the culture and climate at your school in relation to how gender and sexuality are given meaning by you and your peers in the classroom, in the corridor, and on the playground, by teachers, and by school rules and policies.
Focus group
If you’d like to talk more about this topic, you’ll be able to give your contact details in the questionnaire*, and then may be contacted about taking part in a focus group (group interview). At each school three student focus groups will take place, going for around an hour during the school day. One will be for students in years 7-8, one for students in year 9, and one for students in years 10-11. In each group, 5-7 students will discuss results from the questionnaire, and what they might mean. Focus groups will give us further detail about how people at your school have responded to the questionnaire.
There may be some other opportunities to interact with the research. We will keep you informed about these as the project progresses.
*Your contact details will be kept separate from the rest of the questionnaire so all your answers will remain anonymous.
What are the benefits of participating in this project?
Whether you take part as a co-researcher, by responding to the questionnaire, or participating in a focus group, this project allows for your voice and your perspective on your school’s culture to be heard. Your experiences and thoughts are invaluable and can help shape this research project and school approaches to gender and sexuality.
Will I be identifiable?
We will do everything we can to make sure that answers to the questionnaire and focus group discussion are kept private. Student questionnaire responses will be anonymous when filled out, and will be carefully reviewed by the researcher to ensure that no student is identifiable either individually or as associated with a particular school. All questionnaire responses and recordings of focus groups (including transcripts) will be kept in a secure place on a University of Sydney network that is not accessible by other networks. The data will only be accessed by researchers on this project.If, during the focus group, a student tells us anything that suggests they may be in danger of being hurt, hurting themselves or someone else, we may have to break confidentiality in order to ensure that appropriate support is provided.