How Welcoming and Inclusive Are New Zealand Polytechnics for Their Rainbow Students: Rainbow and Non‐Rainbow Students and Staff Thoughts

A plethora of research reports rainbow students’ experiences in tertiary education, but fewer studies focus directly on their experiences in New Zealand's polytechnics (or community colleges in the United States and trade schools in Australia). In 2022, a research collaboration was formed to explore how safe and inclusive the nation's polytechnics are for rainbow students. Two surveys were designed one for rainbow students and another for cisgender heterosexual students and staff (CHS&S). All students and staff in the nation's polytechnics could complete these surveys if they so wished. This article focuses on reporting the Likert data from both surveys. There are some encouraging findings, for instance, the overwhelming majority of rainbow respondents felt safe and supported on campus, while ≈90% of CHS&S respondents also believed that the safety and inclusion of rainbow students was important. Yet, other findings support that of other national studies, whereby there appears a lack of gender‐neutral toilets. An encouraging finding was that over half of the CHS&S also said their polytechnic could do a better job of supporting their rainbow students. Such a finding would have been unlikely in past decades due to society becoming more inclusive of rainbow people over time.