“Ranking of LGBTQ+-Friendly Schools” as an educational intervention

The article presents the results of an empirical study focused on the initiative called “Ranking of LGBTQ+-Friendly Schools.” This initiative, launched in Poland in 2018, takes the form of a civic (grassroots, non-institutional) diagnosis of secondary schools in terms of their openness to sexual or gender diversity, conducted cyclically through an online survey across the country. The study was designed using qualitative methodology, and its perspective is shaped by constructivist and critical paradigms. The empirical material, on which the article is based, comes from three individual interviews with people involved in the implementation of the “Ranking,” a Facebook profile, and a website. The results of the analyses conducted in accordance with the grounded theory approach characterize the “Ranking” as a complex, multi-layered activity, drawing from socio-economic, political, and pedagogical discourses, centered around the envisioned image of a school as an open and fully inclusive place. The categories that emerged are related to the concept of public pedagogy (Gert Biesta), an essential element of which is the notion of “educational intervention,” understood as an act of “interruption.”