Conflicting discourses of ‘democracy’ and ‘equality’: a discourse analysis of the language of pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Relationships and Sex Education guidance for schools in England

Abstract

New statutory Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) guidance for schools in England was published in 2019. One of the major revisions since the preceding version has been the new inclusion of LGBTQ+ identities and relationships. Some groups in the UK have recently protested against this inclusion of positive teaching about LGBTQ+ identities and relationships, suggesting that, although there is overwhelming support for the new guidance, there are still groups in society who are opposed to democratic teaching about this dimension of equality. Focusing on publicly-available video recordings of the protests, this article firstly critically analyses the key discursive strategies deployed by the anti-LGBTQ+ protest groups to produce discrimination and denial. I then compare the language used by the protest groups against the language used by other UK groups who support and continue to campaign for LGBTQ+ inclusion in RSE. Positive discourse analysis, as a progressive dimension of critical discourse analysis, is used to examine how the language used by these groups functions to resist the discriminatory discourse used by the anti-LGBTQ+ groups analysed in the first part of the article. Analysis of the discourse used by the two sets of groups reveals conflicting discourses around what is perceived to constitute ‘democracy’ and ‘equality’ in the context of LGBTQ+ inclusion and schools, suggesting that these are fragile concepts in the current British political climate.