'The class continued like it never happened': high school teachers' in/action in response to homophobic and transphobic harassment

Educators in Australia have a duty of care to their students, inclusive of both a moral and legal obligation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the students in their care. Specifically, this duty requires educations to take reasonable measures to protect students from experiencing foreseeable harm; failure to do so may constitute negligence. In the simplest sense, a foundational element of educators’ work is to ensure the schooling environment is a safe one, free from bodily or mental harm. In practice, this may be more complicated than it sounds. Students may reserve verbal abuse and/or physically violent behaviours for when school-based adults are not present, making educators’ intervention more challenging. Further, individual schooling cultures may inadvertently encourage or discourage these forms of harassment through the messages of in/tolerance that educators convey to their students via their un/willingness to engage when particular student identity characteristics are targeted for harassment or victimisation.