Brave Spaces: Action Research With Queer Educators in Religious Schools

Abstract

We live in paranoia!" The voice of Pablo (all names given are pseudonyms) broke the silence of a heavy moment as queer teachers from religious institutions met to discuss experiences in their schools. Everyone in the room agreed. Many queer teachers in religious institutions must negotiate the closet in their schools, where being "out" is cause for termination (Griffin, 1991; Sedgwick,1990). Teachers in this first meeting spoke of the isolation and anxiety that surrounded their daily lives. Pablo explained the degree to which life in the closet affected queer teacher lives: "Our own community of friends is threatened by their association with us." Another educator, Jae, reflected on the conversation and identified the reality that his peers were describing as an institutional "mechanism of fear." Then they asked fateful and brave question:So, what are we going to do about it?This paper represents a snapshot of a living, and richly evolving, community action research project driven by queer identified teachers in religious schools and two partnering university researchers. This ongoing process of conscientization, action, analysis, and renewed inquiry initially developed from two separate dissertation studies focused on the experiences ofLGBTQIA+ teachers in Catholic institutions. What flowed from these initial studies was a community of queer educators who have drawn together to understand both themselves, their agency, and the institutions which they inhabit. In a time in which hegemonic discourses drown out voices which trouble the status-quo, libratory action research has erupted from the margins.The paper highlights the communal and epistemological power of praxis as described in the work of Paulo Freire and lived by this community (2000). Our purpose is to trace the ways that this