ATA names research award winner

Research aims to counter anti-LGBTQ2S+ legislation

A research project aimed at documenting the impact of new gender-related legislation and policies has won the ATA’s 2025 Education Research Award.

The winning submission, by Campus Saint-Jean assistant education professor Gillian Robinson, sought to understand how teachers’ day-to-day professional lives and their perception of their work were impacted by the government’s Bill 27 and ministerial order 030/2025.

Passed in the fall of 2024, Bill 27 amended the Education Act to, among other things, require school authorities to notify parents when a student chooses a new preferred name or pronoun related to gender identity and also require opting into instruction that deals primarily and explicitly with gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality.

Issued in July 2025, ministerial order 030/2025 bans K–12 school libraries from holding materials that include explicit sexual content and limits access to nonexplicit sexual material for students below Grade 10. It also requires school authorities to develop policies, review collections and keep public lists of library materials. 

Launched in late August 2025, the award-winning study engaged 30 teachers in one-hour, semi-structured interviews in which teachers explained the various ways the new policies had been interpreted and implemented within their local contexts. 

Study participants identified an increased hostility among both students and staff toward vulnerable youth and their general teaching practices, as well as a sense of fear of being disciplined for including and affirming students. 

“It is an incredible honour to be recognized by my peers for this research,” said Robinson, a former queer–straight alliance (QSA) teacher advisor. “I always aim for my work to be meaningful for classroom teachers and the students in their classrooms. I hope, as I continue my career, that I can continue to amplify the voices of teachers seeking to make their schools more welcoming places, and hopefully empower them, as well as educational leaders, to continue their important work, even in difficult contexts.”

Teachers who participated in the study also recounted the additional hours they spent explaining and implementing the new policies rather than preparing to welcome students to a new school year. Further, many teachers had a sense that the policies had been purposefully implemented at a time of extreme underfunding of education in order to create further division and mistrust of teachers before an upcoming potential strike.

Researchers have compiled their findings into a report that includes harm reduction recommendations for senior administrators, school administrators and classroom teachers. 

The ATA Educational Research Award is presented annually to an Alberta academic who is engaged in research directly related to school and classroom practice in Alberta.