Background/Purpose Previous life history research had revealed that heterosexual female physical education teachers were often assumed to be lesbians, regardless of their actual sexual orientations, and so subjected to some of the same prejudices and marginalization encountered by their lesbian colleagues. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of sexual identity stereotyping (SIS) on heterosexual female preservice teachers (PTs).
Method Participants were five heterosexual PTs enrolled in one university's physical education teacher education (PETE) program. Data were collected by formally interviewing each PT.
Analysis/Results Data were analyzed using analytic induction and constant comparison. Results indicated that the PTs generally had a good understanding of SIS and that four of them had encountered it. Only one of the PTs, however, had been sexually stereotyped herself.
Conclusions Grounded theory developed during the study included the following five hypotheses: (a) The majority of heterosexual female PTs will be aware that they can be sexually stereotyped as lesbian, (b) The degree to which heterosexual female PTs sexual identities are stereotyped will be strongly related to the sports and physical activities in which they participate and their physical appearance, (c) Stereotyping of heterosexual female PTs is common, (d) The extent to which heterosexual women contemplating a career in physical education are threatened by SIS will influence whether or not they choose to enter PETE, and (e) Once heterosexual female PTs graduate and obtain employment, the extent to which they are influenced by SIS will depend on the degree to which they are threatened by it.
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