Queer Critical Literacies

Govender, Navan; Andrews, Grant

doi:10.4324/9781003023425-9

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Some queer literacies scholars have already taken up inclusive and queering approaches together. Scholars have done so through outlining ELA classroom practices broadly (Helton, 2020), integrating queer theories with critical literacies (Govender & Andrews, 2021;Helmer, 2016), considering literature instruction (Simon et al, 2018;Smith, 2008), and describing youths' experiences of classroom lessons (Schey, 2020(Schey, , 2021a(Schey, , 2022aVetter, 2010). Developing an explicit framework, Ryan and Hermann-Wilmarth (2018) advocate for "expanding representations" (i.e., inclusion), "questioning categories" (i.e., queering), and interweaving the two by "questioning silences in expanded representations" (pp.…”

Section: Literacy Pedagogies and Curricula Inclusive Of Sexual And Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Literacy (Dis)Orientations in a Secondary Classroom: Possibilities and Limits of an Intersectional LGBTQ+‐Inclusive Curriculum

Schey

2022

Reading Research Quarterly

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Drawing from a yearlong literacy ethnography conducted at a high school in a Midwestern U.S. city, this article extends queer literacies and queer pedagogies scholarship by exploring the frictions and resonances between strategies of inclusion and queering. While inclusion strategies emphasize using expanded representations of sexuality and gender, such as of LGBTQ+ life, queering approaches often trouble inclusion through, for instance, questioning normativities and epistemologies and embracing partiality, uncertainty, and crisis in learning. To unpack interconnections between inclusion and queering, I present an ethnographic case of a lesson in a sophomore humanities course, focusing on the teacherly moves of an English language arts educator leading an instructional conversation about a nonfiction article describing intersections among sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, and class with respect to food insecurity. Engaging Ahmed's ( 2006) queer theorization of orientations, I develop the heuristic of literacy (dis)orientations to describe the layered mixture of classroom literacy performances challenging and reifying oppressive values regarding intersections among sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, and class. The teacher disoriented students away from (homo)normativities regarding knowledge of LGBTQ+ communities and reoriented them toward and around nuanced, intersectional understandings of queer and trans life. However, these anti-oppressive possibilities were limited by orientations around a banking model of education and binaries. This ethnographic case suggests that educators sanctioning literacy orientations toward intersectional LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum presents possibilities for liberatory social change insofar as they disorient students away from education-as-banking and epistemological binaries and reorient them around alternative ways of knowing, specifically intersectionality as a queering epistemology.

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Section: Literacy Pedagogies and Curricula Inclusive Of Sexual And Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Literacy (Dis)Orientations in a Secondary Classroom: Possibilities and Limits of an Intersectional LGBTQ+‐Inclusive Curriculum

Schey

2022

Reading Research Quarterly

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“…As Miller (2015) aptly notes, gender binary norms are typically reinforced through literature. Yet by using literature, as exampled here, which deliberately represents a gender identity that is often oppressed, a teacher can engage in queer critical literacy practices through reconstructing representations of a range of gender identities (Govender & Andrews, 2022). The World Health Organisation states that "rigid gender norms negatively affect people with diverse gender identities, who often face violence, stigma and discrimination as a result" (World Health Organisation, 2022).…”

Section: Gender Expansive Practices For Teaching Pronounsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A ground‐breaking research project in England, No Outsiders , was a significant attempt at queering teachers' practices in teaching English using literature with queer representations and or content (DePalma, 2013; DePalma & Atkinson, 2009). Additionally, in Canada, Australia and the United States, scholars have been studying how to implement queer literature into primary school contexts (Blackburn et al., 2016; Hermann‐Wilmarth & Ryan, 2015; Martino & Cumming‐Potvin, 2016) and engage in queer critical literacies (Govender & Andrews, 2022) to interrogate hetero‐cis‐norms in literature (Blackburn & Smith, 2011; Ryan & Hermann‐Wilmarth, 2019). This research has been impactful and important in raising social justice implications for recognition and representation (Mills et al., 2016) of queer and gender‐expansive identities and topics in primary classrooms, and primary school teacher practices.…”

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When learning about pronouns, the text connects to how these parts of speech relate to identity and diverse gender experiences and explores similarities and differences between them (ACARA, 2010c, AC9HP2P01 ). While this is a curriculum requirement to offer children this language learning, it is also recognizing that gender is expansive and engages in queer critical literacy practices (Govender & Andrews, 2022) that question hetero‐cis‐norms (Worthen, 2016). The text also introduces children to important words relating to gender and includes contextual explanations of the words and definitions in a glossary which deliberately engages social recognition (Fraser, 2009) of non‐binary genders.…”

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching English and the Grammatical Use of the Pronoun: Queer(y)ing the Teaching of Writing

Pickering,

van Leent

2024

The Reading Teacher

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In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the globe, teaching pronouns for reading comprehension and cohesion in writing in English language classrooms is not only a curriculum directive but a social justice imperative. In this paper, we combine the teaching of pronouns in English with social justice concepts of political representation and cultural recognition for gender equity. We engage a gender‐expansive understanding of the term gender, beyond a male and female binary, and recognize that children identify with and express genders that are non‐binary. For gender equity to progress and for children to have parity of participation for learning English, gender‐expansive understandings about language such as pronouns is important for engaging in socially just teaching and learning in English language classrooms. This paper presents three resources related to teaching about pronouns in primary school contexts using a gender‐expansive understanding. Children must see themselves represented in the language that they are immersed in, learning in, and learning about. Here we offer gender‐expansive teaching practices for teaching pronouns in the English language classroom.

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“…The hope presented by alliances between education and activism is therefore not one to be overlooked if policy and rhetoric are to be realised in any meaningful ways, especially as this publication has implications for research, practice, and policy-making internationally. In South Africa and internationally, such alliances are also necessary for the continued work in outreach (Francis, Kjaran & Lehtonen, 2020), on developing queer critical literacies in teacher education (Govender & Andrews, 2021;Andrews, 2020), as well as the continued need to de/reconstruct the role of critical, queer, trans, and decolonial studies (Singh, 2021;Koch et al, 2020) that also resists homonormativity and the homogenisation of what queer and transinclusive education might look like when the local politics of power are foregrounded.…”

Section: Queer Activism In South African Education: a Book Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Queer Activism in South African Education: A Book Review Queer Activism in South African Education: A Book Review Edited by Navan Govender

Govender

2023

Journal of LGBT Youth

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Dennis A. Francis' (2023) publication, Queer Activism in South African Education: Disrupting Cis(hetero)normativity in Schools, recognises and brings into visibility the experiences of queer youth, teachers and other school staff, and queer and trans activists. Throughout the book, moments of recognition suggest a radical movement toward more socially just practice, while others reveal the overwhelming persistence of oppressive norms. Although many aspects of South Africa's policy landscape might represent progressive and queer-trans-inclusive perspectives on human rights, education, health, governance, and so on, the lived realities of LGBTQI+ youth (and adults) continue to be filled with violence and suspicion (Msibi, 2012). Queer and trans people, communities, and activists, as revealed through the corpus of Francis' research in this book, are nevertheless powerful agents of change -from the everyday to the systemic.

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Queer Critical Literacies

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Literacy (Dis)Orientations in a Secondary Classroom: Possibilities and Limits of an Intersectional LGBTQ+‐Inclusive Curriculum

Literacy (Dis)Orientations in a Secondary Classroom: Possibilities and Limits of an Intersectional LGBTQ+‐Inclusive Curriculum

Teaching English and the Grammatical Use of the Pronoun: Queer(y)ing the Teaching of Writing

Queer Activism in South African Education: A Book Review Queer Activism in South African Education: A Book Review Edited by Navan Govender

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