Education Commons^™

Teaching Queer Theory And The History Of Sexuality With Margaret Cavendish’S The Convent Of Pleasure, Valerie Billing

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This article summarizes my approach to teaching Cavendish’s play The Convent of Pleasure in my course “LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture,” which I teach at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. I demonstrate how I teach the play with excerpts from literary scholarship in queer theory in order to help students sharpen their close reading skills, teach scholarly engagement, and deepen students’ understanding of early modern and Restoration comedy and the history of sexuality.

"There Is Power In Being Out": A Three Article Approach Celebrating The Experiences Of Queer University Leaders, Andrew R. E. Lorenzana

Dissertations

Institutions of higher education were historically built to serve a wealthy, White, straight male student population and the leaders of these institutions still largely reflect these demographics. This project specifically aims to celebrate and amplify the life and career of university administrators who identify within the LGBTQ community. Mainly through the use of a portraiture methodology, this three-article study attempts to examine the ways in which LGBTQ identity and career influence one another.

Worldmaking and narrative will be used as a theoretical frame to help analyze the ways in which the telling of a queer individual’s story makes the world …

Turning Theory Into Practice: An Application Of Queer Family Theory For Graduate Students, Shawn N. Mendez, Samuel H. Allen

Feminist Pedagogy

This paper describes an original teaching activity for instructors of graduate students. Leveraging a critical, transformative, and intersectional pedagogical perspective applied to graduate education, this paper prepares instructors to effectively teach queer theory through an application of the Hegemonic Heteronormativity (HH) model, introduced by Allen and Mendez in 2018. The HH model identifies heteronormativity as a pervasive, three-pronged hegemony, each of which shifts and changes intersectionally and over time. The three-part assignment described in this paper asks students to read the Hegemonic Heteronormativity manuscript independently before reviewing the model with instructor facilitation. Then, students apply the model to real-life examples …

Brave Schools: Exploring Student Rights & Inclusive Anti-Bullying School Spaces Through Transgender & Queer Liberation Practices, Miruna Ouatu-Lascar

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

In today’s climate student rights and the rights of transgender students particularly are constantly under attack creating school community climates that are hostile & dangerous for kids. This workshop will present participants with an overview of transgender and queer theory liberatory practices & outline strategies for creating inclusive school communities that are not only welcoming but actively engage in combating hate and bully culture.

“It's The Commonwealth's Attempt To Censor . . . What We Teach”: Anti-Lgbtqia2s+ Educational Policy Influences On Rural Secondary Ela Teacher Practices, Josh Thompson, Clint Whitten, Karin Kaerwer

Virginia English Journal

The shift in political landscape in Virginia from former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam to current Republican Governor Glen Youngkin influenced educational policies in the commonwealth. Waving the banner of parental rights, the Youngkin administration began targeting LGBTQIA2S+ students and educators through legislation and policies such as SB 656 and Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools. To understand the influence on rural school districts, this study asked how rural secondary English Language Arts educators understand and respond to these anti-LGBTQIA2S+ policies as well as the ways in which those educators …

Queer Perspectives On Mentorship In Higher Education: A Phenomenological Study, Anthony T. Fucci

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This qualitative study explored the way in which LGBTQ+ college students experienced mentorship. Despite improvements in LGBTQ+ rights over the last 50+ years, recent scholarship has shown that queer students still face unique challenges, including discrimination and harassment based on their queer identity. Mentorship has been found to be an effective resource for assisting marginalized student populations transition successfully into college. The purpose of this study was to investigate how LGBTQ+ students experienced mentorship in order to better understand how these relationships may (or may not) contribute to their experience on college campuses. A phenomenological research design and queer theory …

Lgbtq Literature In The High School English Language Arts Classroom: A Rationale For A Unit Plan On Giovanni’S Room By James Baldwin, Jenivieve D'Andrea

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The inclusion of LGBTQ literature in the high school English Language Arts classroom is a necessary step that secondary schools should take to promote culturally responsive teaching that represents the growing number of adolescents identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer in American public schools. According to a study conducted by the Williams Institute School of Law (2020), information from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey found that about 1,994,000 of adolescents ages thirteen to seventeen identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Of this national count, about 39,000 adolescents in Massachusetts identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. …

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring The Educational Experiences Of Lgbtq+ Students, Ashley R. Stroud

Doctoral Dissertations

Research shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Queer and questioning plus (LGBTQ+) youth are at high risk for bullying and violent victimization, poor mental health, alcohol and other drug use, and poor academic performance. According to the 2019 GLSEN school climate survey, LGBTQ+ students reported hearing hostile remarks, experiencing harassment and assault, feeling unsafe because of personal characteristics, and being subjected to discriminatory policies. The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to understand how secondary students experience school environments and how their teachers can be supportive and affirming of their diverse identities. The following research questions guided this study: 1) …

Instruction, Identity, And Inclusivity: What Can Teacher Preparation Programs Learn From Gay Male Teachers In The South, Joseph R. Jones

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Abstract: In this article, the author discusses a qualitative research study that examined southern gay male teachers’ beliefs about the intersectionality of sexuality, gender identity, and pedagogy in secondary classrooms. For this discussion, three important themes emerged from the data analysis: instruction, identity, and inclusivity. The study utilized individual unstructured interviews, unstructured focus group interviews, classroom observations with field notes, and a research journal. The findings offer suggestions for teacher preparation programs to consider when preparing teacher candidates for the profession.

'It’S Just Filth:’ Banned Books And The Project Of Queer Erasure, Caitlin O'Loughlin, Taylor Schmidt, Jocelyn Glazier

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper seeks to explore the connection between the banning of queer books, the creation of discourses of controversy, and the erasure of queer knowledges and peoples from schools. Using a queer theory-informed approach to critical discourse analysis, we ask how these proposed bans seek to erase queer peoples, how this impacts teachers, and what teacher preparation programs can do to counter these acts of destruction.

Postdigital Ecopedagogies: Genealogies, Contradictions, And Possible Futures, Petar Jandrić, Derek R. Ford

Education Studies Faculty publications

This paper charts some genealogies, challenges, and directions for experimenting with the utopic postdigital ecopedagogies demanded by our present (post)pandemic reality. These are messianic—rather than prophetic—utopias that exist not as proclamations or programmes for a distant future but as potentialities immanent in the irreducible excess of the present. While their roots most clearly emanate from the Freirean-inspired ecopedagogy movement, we conceptualize ecopedagogies instead as educational forms that emerge from, negotiate, debate, produce, resist, and/or overcome the shifting and expansive postdigital ecosystems from and to which we write and think. These are expansive ecosystems of humans, postdigital machines, nonhuman animals, minerals, …

Lived Experiences Of Parents With Transgender And Gender Expansive Children, Mary Kathryn Brammer

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Parents of transgender and gender expansive (TGE) children can be recognized as a marginalized community often not represented or visible in the context of Westernized society. They experience significant challenges that impact their job as primary caregivers and burden their ability to raise healthy and happy TGE people. This research, guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology and Queer theory, aimed to discern parents of TGE children’s subjective and collective experience raising a TGE child in New Mexico, understand how they experience a support group each participant has attended at least one time, and recognize the significance of these experiences for …

Queering Feminist Facilitation : A Culture Circle Discusses Gender & Sexuality, Kelly E. Lormand

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study examines the collaboration of fifteen high school educators who came together to dialogue addressing patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, and heteronormativity in our practices, curriculum, classrooms, and school. Additionally, this practitioner action research study examines my attempt to queer and disrupt feminist facilitation. The study was situated in a competitive and economically privileged school district in the Northeast with district-wide goal dedicated to cultural diversity and anti-biased language. Using Paulo Freire’s (1970/2004) model of culture circles and Souto-Manning’s (2010) critical cycle, the group transformed a traditional professional learning community (PLC) into a feminist, queer, and activist community. The group engaged …

Narratives From Appalachia: The Current Stories Of Lgbtq Community College Students, Todd A. Cimino-Johnson

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

LGBTQ students are ubiquitous on community college campuses across the United States. The exact number of LGBTQ students is unknown and often their needs are ignored. LGBTQ students face harassment and discrimination at higher rates than other minority groups. This study was conducted to gather the current narratives of LGBTQ students attending community colleges in the Appalachian Region. This study aimed to determine what LGBTQ students are experiencing on community college campuses across Appalachia. Fifteen students took part in a one-on-one semi-structured interview for this qualitative study. All students were currently enrolled in a program of study when the interviews …

On The Straight And Narrow: How Cultural Beliefs About Sex/Gender Manifest In College Biology Learning Environments., Katherine Ray Kng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focused on the ways that social beliefs about sex/gender and sexuality manifest in biology classrooms. Especially for health science students, classes include topics like sex, sexuality, sexual behaviors, or sex determination that forms the foundation of their understanding of human forms and behaviors. If the information they receive does not include the LGBTQIA+ community, their education will fail to adequately prepare them for the reality of healthcare practice where they will be expected to treat all patients with dignity and respect. There are three chapters in this dissertation. In chapter one, I asked what beliefs about and conceptions …

Review Of Jason Farr's Novel Bodies: Disability And Sexuality In Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Nowell Marshall

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Jason Farr's Novel Bodies: Disability and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …

Trans Sports Illustrated: Identities And Experiences Of Transgender Athletes Assigned Female At Birth, Sophia Neely

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

This empirical study explores how transgender athletic adults assigned female at birth narrate their identities and experiences related to gender and sports participation. Using the methodology of social science portraiture filtered through a lens of queer feminist theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two trans men and three nonbinary participants. The participants are diverse in terms of age (21 to 54), race (white, Asian American, and African American), current primary sports interest (squash, CrossFit, powerlifting, baseball, and rock climbing), and pronouns (he/him/his, ze/zir/zirs, and they/them/theirs). Media reports and extant research on transgender athletes tend to recount bleak histories of exclusion, …

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …

Gender Equity In Outdoor Adventures: How Gender Constructs Shape Engagement At The University Of San Diego, Lauren Wong

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

Outdoor Adventures (OA) at the University of San Diego bridges the industries of outdoor education and higher education. This action research investigates the constructions of gender that inform programming and relationship building within OA. Through a survey and focus groups, I collected data from OA professional staff and student leaders. The purpose of this research was to explore how different genders engage with experiential learning in an outdoor setting through a lens of queer theory, by evaluating the engagement of OA professional staff and participants. My findings indicate that the constructs of gender inform the ways students experience their capacity …

Coming Out Online And On Campus : Queer Perspectives On Identity Work, Ian Callahan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research aims to describe the experiences associated with coming out—both on campus and online—for sexually and gender nonconforming college students. In 2014, I conducted a pilot version of this study at a public American university in the Northeast, utilizing data from semi- structured in-depth interviews and a demographic questionnaire. A thematic analysis using open and axial coding techniques found that social media interactions contributed to ‘outing’ students on campus. This finding inspired a second iteration of the study, which replicates the original research design and expands its interview script to include a more expansive series of questions related to …

Theatre As A Medium To Discover A Pedagogy Of Activism, Ted Mccadden, Jennifer L. Pemberton, Alan Chaffe

Adult Education Research Conference

This study revisits two data sets, narratives from theatre artists exploring sexual identity and interviews with participants from queer theatre festivals, to explore experiences of activism within the participants’ reflections.

Gender Beliefs Of Teachers In Orthodox Jewish Early Childhood Programs, Ilana Chai Dvorin Friedman

Dissertations

The goal of this study was to explore gender beliefs of teachers in Orthodox Jewish coeducational early childhood programs and give voice to their experiences and viewpoints. Concurrently, a feminist poststructural and queer theory lens was utilized to uphold Gorsetman and Sztokman’s (2013) claim that Orthodox Jewish schooling is fraught with messages and discourses that inhibit “educating for the divine image” (p. 30). This study maintained the need to examine gender consciousness within Orthodox Jewish schooling to promote inclusion and equality.

As young children actively engage in gender construction, teachers play a vital role reinforcing and/or challenging norms and available …

Review Of Heteronormativity In Eighteenth-Century Literature And Culture, Kevin Bourque

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Sometimes The Sh*T Stays Messy : Critical Frameworks For Arts-Based Researchers & Educators, Zoe Schein

Masters Theses

The standards by which we assess the legitimacy of knowledge production are deeply biased: resting ideologically, systemically, and formally on processes that are deeply rooted in systems of oppression. Consequently, our current body of “legitimate” or scholarly knowledge presents only a partial, partisan picture of what it is possible—and worthwhile—to know. This thesis addresses how hegemonic institutions (like the academy) rely on two central notions: (1) that their methods are “objective,” “value-neutral,” or otherwise impartial (2) that these methods are the best—if not the only—ones through which “real” knowledge may be accessed and communicated. As this paper demonstrates, each of …

Introduction: Queering Education, Darla Linville

Occasional Paper Series

What might it mean to make education more queer? Queerness is not a unitary identity (as is no identity) and queer is not a single way of thinking or being. Sometimes queer is opposition to outness, or resistance to acceptance, and exists in order to disrupt and discomfit. This, too, is queer. How might educators work to make schools more welcoming of queer bodies and identifications, queer the binary categories that define social life, and disrupt the differential privileging of those who claim normative identities?

Book Review: Power, Voice And Subjectivity In Literature For Young Readers. Maria Nikolajeva. New York: Routledge, 2010. 204 Pages., Stacy Loyd

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

Power, Voice, and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers. Maria Nikolajeva (2010).

In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett

Democracy and Education

This article offers a positive review of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality, a readable and refreshing account of the ambiguities and possibilities relating to gender and sexuality in education today. The review argues that, with a focus on public school experiences, this collection of vignettes, lessons, and critical essays, amounts to a resource that is of great value to teachers, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and citizens as they navigate the ever-changing winds of gender and sexuality, particularly as they diverge and multiply along categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and class. This book offers hope and excitement for those of us …

“White People Are Gay, But So Are Some Of My Kids”: Examining The Intersections Of Race, Sexuality, And Gender, Stephanie A. Shelton

Occasional Paper Series

A significant body of research examines the roles and characteristics of teachers who identify as allies to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students. Literature notes LGBTQ students’ vulnerability but often excludes students’ racial identities as relevant to LGBTQ identities. Drawing on queer theory and a longitudinal study, this paper examines through individual and focus group interviews the ways that a novice English Education teacher shifted from a bifurcated understanding of race as separate from LGBTQ topics to a position that fully embraced the importance of race as a factor in both serving LGBTQ students and teaching LGBTQ-positive topics.

Teaching Critical Looking: Pedagogical Approaches To Using Comics As Queer Theory, Ashley Manchester

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Given the challenging depth of queer theoretical concepts, this article argues that one of the most effective ways to teach the complexities of queer theory is by utilizing comics in the classroom. I focus on how college-level instructors can use the content, form, and history of comics to teach students how to enact and do queer theory. By reading and making comics, students learn concrete and theoretical tools for combatting oppressive discourses and modes of meaning making. Teaching comics as queer theory promotes both innovative critical thinking and critical looking skills by centralizing both the rich history of queer comics …