Teaching Undergraduates About LGBTQ Identities, Families, and Intersectionality

Abstract

Teaching undergraduate students about LGBTQ identities and family issues presents several challenges, or “opportunities,” which we address within personal, ecological, and historical contexts. We begin by articulating our positionality as scholars and instructors, and the feminist intersectional and queer lens that guides our research and pedagogy. We organize our presentation of contemporary teaching opportunities around three primary and interrelated topics: (a) teaching about LGBTQ issues with attention to intersectionality as a conceptual framework, (b) teaching about sexual orientation diversity and fluidity, and (c) teaching about gender diversity and transgender identities. We incorporate suggestions for educational practice throughout and recommend that instructors continually revise their teaching practices to reflect the changing technological and social landscape, thus maximizing opportunities for student engagement and learning.

Queering Methodologies to Understand Queer Families

“…This is compensatory work that highlights inequalities inherent in the lived experience of queer families (for parallels in queer pedagogy, see also Few‐Demo et al, ). Comparatively, research for queer families is concerned with empowerment (Goldberg & Allen, ; Thompson ): situating queer family experiences in broader social context (Oswald, Routon, McGuire, & Holman, ); attending to diversities among queer families according to race, ethnicity, and class, among others (Carroll, ); and challenging conventional assumptions and conceptualizations of queer families. Queering methods for queer families also implores responsibility from scholars to “effectively disseminate our research findings to policymakers and other persons in positions of power” (Goldberg, , pp.…”

Preparing the Educators Who Teach About Families: Engaging Family Science in the University Setting

“…The interdisciplinary study of families, typically associated with Departments of HDFS (among many other names, including family studies, family science, and family and consumer science; see Hans, ) is aligned not only with the pedagogical practice of family life education (e.g., Bailey & Gentry, ; Darling et al, ; Hennon, Radina, & Wilson, ; Myers‐Walls et al, ) but also with interdisciplinary sources of knowledge and application from which teachers and students may gain new ideas and strategies to convey the critical, complex, and always compelling subject matter about families (e.g., Allen, ; Few‐Demo, Humble, Curran, & Lloyd, ; Gentry, ; Goldberg & Allen, ; Grzywacz & Allen, ; Hamon & Smith, ; Hoff & Distelberg, ; Sprey, ). What guides our field, whether called HDFS, family science, or a related term (Hans, ), is “a clear and cogent commitment to making a positive difference in human lives” (Grzywacz & Middlemiss, , p. 547).…”

“…Similarly, Allen and Henderson () described four common assumptions across all family theories: (a) developmental: Families change over time; (b) diversity: Families vary in their composition and structure; (c) systemic: Families are systems; and (d) processual: Families are dynamic. Increasingly, family theories are accounting for more critical approaches that acknowledge the vast plurality of families in global contexts (Trask, ) and are addressing queer theory (Acosta, ; Few‐Demo et al, ; van Eeden‐Moorefield, Few‐Demo, Benson, Bible, & Lummer, ); transfamily theory (McGuire, Kuvalanka, Catalpa, & Toomey, ); and intersectional and feminist theories (Allen & Henderson, ; Collins & Bilge, ; Few‐Demo, ; Goldberg & Allen, ).…”

Writing a Family Theories Textbook: A Pedagogical Praxis

“…We shared the explicit intention of centering and featuring diverse individuals and families throughout the text. Taking a feminist, intersectional approach, we highlighted family experiences by gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, nationality, age, and other diverse ways in which lives are structured, privileged, and challenged (Allen, ; Few‐Demo, ; Goldberg & Allen, ; Kaestle, ). In taking this approach, we deliberately wanted to avoid centering the book on the monolithic standard nuclear family—the White, middle‐class, and heterosexually married unit with young children (D. E. Smith, ).…”