About the Project
This project wants to figure out how young people and people who grew up within the Australian education system, who are religious or spiritual understand and handle issues around sexuality that might come up in their everyday lives. By looking at the experiences of young people around Australia, we hope to find out new information about how young people understand their identity. This is important because this information will help influence health policies and school curriculum, to better focus on improving education and healthcare services for LGBTIQ+ religious young people in Australia.
In order to widen the pool of interviewees who are able to engage in the project we have decided to broadly invite queer, same sex attracted and/or religious young people, from 16 to aged 60, to take part in the research interviews. The rationale behind this is that young adults schooled in Australia have been education under the exemptions legislation, whether religious or not. In many respects this extends the readings of the exemptions bill that we will be able to develop, by broadening the remit of young interviewees. Additionally, we have decided to invite teachers and adults within and outside the education system as long as they have opinions they wish to express in relation to sexuality and religion.
This is a collaboration between RMIT University, The University of South Australia, the University of Western Sydney and Maynooth University.
Why is this project important?
Religious schools are a big part of Australia's education system and get more funding per student from the government compared to non-religious schools. Right now, we don't know much about how these schools teach sex education, especially with their special permissions around discrimination laws, which are being reviewed by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Our study is the first to compare how students feel in religious versus non-religious schools.
Young people who are religious and identify as LGBTIQA+ face a tough mix of homophobia and transphobia in schools and in the wider world. They learn about sex from lots of places like social media. This project wants to find out about the experiences of these young people in religious and non-religious schools, figure out what problems they might face, and find ways to support them so they can understand and accept their sexual and gender identities.