What is justice for the LGBTQ+ person in the Catholic school in Scotland? A Capabilities approach

McGill, Robert (2024) What is justice for the LGBTQ+ person in the Catholic school in Scotland? A Capabilities approach. Ed.D thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

In 2018 The Scottish Government accepted all 33 recommendations of the LGBTQI Working Group set up to explore issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion in Scottish schools. This new move to LGBTQ+ visibility and presence is to be across all school stages, across the curriculum and supported by regulation and inspection bodies. However, it sits within an education system that has within the recent past been subject to legislation, such as Section 28, that prohibited LGBTQ+ presence in schools and in a wider society that has seen some protest against LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools. This new policy and approach therefore raises key questions about the possibility and potential of inclusion. In a Scottish context, this is particularly apt as a significant number of state schools are denominationally Catholic. The Catholic Church has in the past been powerful and vocal in the discourses of exclusion for LGBTQ+ persons and curriculum content in Scottish schools. I argue, that through a clearer understanding and articulation of justice, employing the core ideas of Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, the discussion of LGBTQ+ inclusion in Catholic schools can be moved from the current fear and conflict to an imagined consensus where all are entitled to the capabilities to be and do those things they have reason to value. I maintain that, in contrast to the justification of exclusion -- based on a reliance on disjointed doctrine and scandal in Catholic education -- LGBTQ+ inclusion sits within Catholic ideas of hospitality, difference, and freedom in with each person is entitled to full human dignity and as an end in themselves. As a result, I propose that Catholic schools should and ought to be places of LGBTQ+ presence and visibility at the institutional, pedagogical and pastoral levels.

• Item Type: Thesis (Ed.D)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BV Practical Theology > BV1460 Religious Education; L Education > L Education (General); L Education > LB Theory and practice of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Davis, Professor Robert and Hedge, Professor Nicki
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84340
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 28 May 2024 13:36
• Last Modified: 31 May 2024 14:06
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84340
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84340