In my master’s thesis, I focused on the experiences of rainbow families in kindergartens, schools, or other public institutions. I mainly research the extent to which they are not supported in society as a rainbow family, how they cope with a very heteronormative environment, and what are their main survival strategies. I also talk about different strategies to increase support for rainbow families. In the key part, I focus on the experience in educational institutions, how they include them, exclude them, what are the next necessary steps for better support, what are good experiences, etc. In the interview I tried to obtain as representative sample as possible, so the study included families with lesbian parents, gay parents, and trans parents. I chose my interviewees through acquaintances and recommendations of others, as this is a rather sensitive and personal topic that not every rainbow family is willing to talk about.
In the first part of my master’s thesis, I focus on explaining basic concepts such as the definition of family, rainbow family, and heteronormativity. In what follows, I rely on the life of rainbow families, on research, on legislation and the legal basis itself, on the school system, heteronormativity in schools and literature in which there is almost no talk of rainbow families or LGBT issues. At the very end, I connect the above with the social work, namely in the form of recommendations and measures for better and more competent collaboration in the process with rainbow families.
In the second part, however, I draw on the results of qualitative research I obtained in my interviews. I focus mainly on the common characteristics of rainbow families regarding their survival in a heteronormative society, while at the same time comparing and recording experiences in the educational system. I focus mainly on good experiences, selection procedures, experiences and the feelings of exclusion/inclusion in educational institutions, and the necessary steps to improved support.
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