Watching six-packs, chilling together, spreading rumours: enacting heteronormativity through secondary school friendships and teaching practices

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which heteronormativity is enacted through friendships and teaching practices in and around secondary schools. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three schools in the Netherlands, it describes heteronormativity as relational and situational. Among pupils, heteronormativity was presupposed yet also made in practices of forming, consolidating or ending friendships. Relations between teachers and pupils showed heteronormativity to be differentiated across contexts: in two schools heterosexuality was drawn upon to ease teaching relations, while at a third school it was seen as a hindrance to academic achievement and therefore relegated to the private sphere. Arguing that heteronormativity is enacted in realms of social life that are often desexualised, those of friendship and pedagogy, this paper breaks with the tendency to produce singular accounts of heteronormativity and its effect in schools.

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