ABSTRACT
In 1989, an informal hallway conversation just outside the cafeteria at Bank Street College led to the formation of a lesbian and gay research group. It was not total happenstance that brought three of us (Virginia Casper, Steve Schultz, and Elaine Wickens) together in the hallway that day. Nor is it happenstance that two other faculty members (Harriet Cuffaro and Jonathan Silin) joined our group in 1994. Although there are many differences among us-we are women and men, straight and gay, parents and teachers, from working-class and middle-class families, from urban and rural environments-we have all chosen to work in a unique institution with a particular history and specific location in the educational landscape. Founded as the Bureau of Educational Experiments in 1916 by Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Bank Street College is part of the progressive tradition that sees schools as both a route to social change and a context in which to study the development of children (Antler, 1987; Biber, 1984; Shapiro and Nager, 1995). It remains a small, informal, and nonhierarchical community by contemporary standards.
