'Effeminate arty boys and butch soccer girls': investigating queer and trans-affirmative pedagogies under conditions of neoliberal governance

In this paper, we draw on conversations with two English teachers in an Australian government speciality arts focused school to investigate possibilities for envisaging trans-affirmative and queer pedagogies in the classroom. It draws from two studies that are concerned to investigate how gender and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research papers in education 2019-03, Vol.34 (2), p.131-152
Main Authors: Martino, Wayne, Cumming-Potvin, Wendy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case Studies
Cisgenderism
Classrooms
English Teachers
Epistemology
Football
Foreign Countries
Gender
Gender Differences
Governance
Heteronormativity
High School Students
Homosexuality
Impression management
Institutional Autonomy
Multiple Literacies
neoliberal governance
Neoliberalism
Politics
Politics of Education
Public Education
queer and trans pedagogies
School Policy
Secondary schools
Sexual Identity
Sexual Orientation
Sexuality
Teacher Attitudes
Teachers
Visibility
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Summary:In this paper, we draw on conversations with two English teachers in an Australian government speciality arts focused school to investigate possibilities for envisaging trans-affirmative and queer pedagogies in the classroom. It draws from two studies that are concerned to investigate how gender and sexually diverse students are being supported in the education system. Our study employs queer and trans-informed epistemological insights into the pedagogical limits of heternormativity and cisgenderism in high schools. The data involved engaging with teachers who responded to a range of multi-literacy resources that addressed the politics of queer and trans representation, recognition and visibility in their classrooms. We tease out several themes which pertain to the institutionalisation of heteronormativity and cisgenderism, and how it is entwined with neoliberal governance in one particular case study school. Our purpose is to illustrate how this gender and sexuality politics works in tandem with a particular manifestation of neoliberal governance in the public education system, and plays into a specific policy discourse with particular consequences for schools, students and teachers in terms of impression management and its calculative and performative effects.
ISSN:0267-1522
1470-1146
DOI:10.1080/02671522.2017.1402082