Teachers are tired of the culture wars — and many support LGBTQ+ curricula, Pew survey finds

As state legislatures continue to restrict what topics can be discussed in classrooms, 58 percent of teachers say their government has too much influence over what’s taught in public schools, according to a new survey of 2,531 public school educators from Pew Research Center. Even more, 71 percent say teachers don’t have enough influence over the subjects taught in public schools in their area.

While the majority, 53 percent, say the debate over school curricula has neither positively nor negatively affected their ability to do their job, a sizeable chunk of 41 percent say that the discourse has negatively impacted them. Just 4 percent say there has been a positive effect.

Furthermore, many educators support curricula that include the topics their legislators are banning. The majority, 64 percent, believe students should learn the legacy of slavery, and how it still affects the position of Black people in American society today. Just 23 percent said that students should learn the history of slavery, but that it does not have a lasting impact on Black Americans. Only 8 percent said the topic should not be taught in schools.

Teachers were less likely to defend lessons related to gender identity, as half of those polled said the subject should not be taught in schools. However, a sizeable share of 33 percent said that students should learn that "someone can be a boy or a girl even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth." Only 14 percent said students should learn that someone's gender is determined by their sex at birth, an opinion that all major medical organizations dispute.

Support for teaching gender identity also increased among instructors of higher age groups. Whereas 62 percent of elementary teachers and 45 percent of middle school teachers said gender identity should not be taught in schools, only 35 percent of high school teachers said the same. Most high school teachers, 45 percent, believe that students should be taught gender identity is not defined by one's sex.

While the majority of public K-12 teachers, 60 percent, say parents should notbe able to opt their children out of learning about racism or racial inequality in school, 48 percent say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation or gender identity. Among parents, 54 percent agree that they should be able to opt their children out of LGBTQ+ lessons, but only 34 percent say they should be able to opt out of topics involving racism or racial inequality.

Despite the culture war surrounding LGBTQ+ subjects in schools, 68 percent of teachers said sexual orientation and gender identity rarely or never came up in their classrooms in the 2022-23 school year. Topics related to racism or racial inequality came up more frequently, with 56 percent saying they came up at least sometimes in their classroom, and 21 percent saying they came up often or extremely often.