Americans divided on LGBTQ representation in high school curriculum: poll

Americans are split — largely along party lines — on how much LGBTQ representation they want in school books and high school curriculum, according to a new survey from the University of Southern California (USC).

Nearly 6 in 10 respondents, 59 percent, said transgender rights should generally be taught, while 65 percent said the same for gay rights, the poll found.

More than two-thirds of Americans who identify as Democrats support the teaching of those topics in high schools, while around one-third of Republicans do.

There's less disagreement for elementary school curricula, with just 30 percent saying transgender rights should be taught and 28 percent saying same-sex rights should be taught.

That also breaks down along partisan lines, with close to 50 percent of Democrats supporting the teaching of both transgender rights and same-sex rights, while fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans support teaching those topics in elementary schools.

LGBTQ representation has seen a broad divide between members of both major parties in recent years.

Some Republican-controlled states have restricted the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools and have banned books on those topics, accusing them of being hyper-sexualized or of grooming children, while congressional Democrats in recent months have focused on trying to codify same-sex marriage.

Researchers noted that "schools are a political battleground, as they always have been, with teachers and administrators often caught in the middle of warring factions."

"We hope our findings point the way toward areas where common ground can be established, and where more work needs to be done to unite us through public education," they wrote.

In the poll, Americans were divided in whether teachers should assign books that deal with LGBTQ representation in high school curricula, though Americans they were largely in agreement that the topic should not be broached in assigned elementary school books.

About 41 percent say books discussing families with same-sex parents should be taught in high school, with 38 percent saying the same for books about the experiences of gay and lesbian people. Just 36 percent agree books about transgender rights should be distributed in high school curriculum.

Agreement on LGBTQ representation in books is divided along partisan lines, with those identifying as Democratic much more likely to agree with including the topic in high school material than Republicans.

The survey of 3,751 households across the U.S. was conducted by USC's Rossier School of Education and Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.