Understanding Agency Beyond School Sanctioned Activities

This article reviews literature that portrays lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students both as victims of heterosexism and homophobia as well as agents, or ones who exert power, for change in schools. It complicates this literature by focusing on three youth who deal with the oppressions they experience in quite different ways and in ways that are not always sanctioned by schools. It challenges educators to recognize and value this agency. It asserts that it is not the job of educators to increase young people's agency. Rather, it is the job of educators to tap into students' agency for the good of the students, and to create school communities that allow students to be themselves and work for social change.