Cultivating a Queer Mindset: How One Elementary School Teacher is Rattling Common Sense

Abstract

Background/Context A significant body of research on gender and sexual diversity in education has called on teachers to “move beyond inclusion” of LGBTQ+ voices in curriculum by queering their practice and “disrupting cis-heteronormativity.” Few studies have focused on the ways that disrupting cis-heteronormativity is challenging work for teachers to engage. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study In this case study, we focus on patterned moves that Laura, a first-grade teacher, made to disrupt cis-heteronormativity by supporting her students in cultivating what we call a “queer mindset”—a way of thinking, feeling, and doing that “rattles” her students’ common sense. Research Design The qualitative study reflects a nested case study design in which Laura represents an individual case within the broader case. Specifically, we use instrumental case study methodology. Conclusions/Recommendations To make good on the goal of disrupting cis-heteronormativity, we encourage educators to cultivate in their students ways of thinking, feeling, and doing that upend common sense and that challenge the status quo. We encourage educators to support their students in developing queer mindsets. This way, not only can educators support individual students, but they can also propel the kind of social transformation we want to see.

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

“…Lessons—such as Ms. Abby's about the interrelations among sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, and class—“should not be done to fill a gap in knowledge (as if ignorance were the only problem)” (Kumashiro, 2001a, p. 18). Within queer literacy pedagogies, scholars (e.g., Blackburn & Smith, 2010; Leonardi & Staley, 2021; Ryan & Hermann‐Wilmarth, 2018) have described the necessity of attending to pedagogical strategies for mediating textual representations of LGBTQ+ lives and practices (i.e., inclusive curriculum). This shift from considering what is read to how it is read (Kumashiro, 2015; Schey, 2017) helps delineate teaching practices that might be simultaneously informed by queer pedagogues' troubling of inclusion while still leveraging inclusive representations as valuable.…”

“…vii–viii), a three‐pronged framework implying that the limits of expanded representations can be usefully named and interrogated through queer reading practices (see also, Schey, 2017). Leonardi and Staley (2021; Staley, 2022; Staley & Leonardi, 2016) offer sustained investigation into the paradoxes of a queer(ed) inclusive educational praxis, focusing heavily on the emotional discomfort leaners experience when questioning “common sense” (Kumashiro, 2015) with respect to gender and sexuality. Their exploration of moment‐by‐moment instructional moves and instances of pedagogical disruption (especially Leonardi & Staley, 2021; Staley, 2022) resonates with my own individual and collaborative inquiries into (dis)orientations here and elsewhere disidentifications (Schey, 2020) and ruptures (Schey & Blackburn, 2019).…”

“…Leonardi and Staley (2021; Staley, 2022; Staley & Leonardi, 2016) offer sustained investigation into the paradoxes of a queer(ed) inclusive educational praxis, focusing heavily on the emotional discomfort leaners experience when questioning “common sense” (Kumashiro, 2015) with respect to gender and sexuality. Their exploration of moment‐by‐moment instructional moves and instances of pedagogical disruption (especially Leonardi & Staley, 2021; Staley, 2022) resonates with my own individual and collaborative inquiries into (dis)orientations here and elsewhere disidentifications (Schey, 2020) and ruptures (Schey & Blackburn, 2019). Collectively, these studies of queer literacies are, in part, posing questions about queering the epistemological practices that students and teachers use in the context of curricula inclusive of sexual and gender diversity.…”

Exploring the impact of panoptic heteronormativity on UK primary teachers advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusive education

“…Disrupting heteronormativity which 'structures social life so that heterosexuality is always assumed, expected, ordinary and privileged' (Martin and Kazyak, 2009: 316) has become the focus of a small but increasing amount of research (see : Carlile, 2020;DePalma and Atkinson, 2009;Johnson, 2022;Reimers, 2020). A large part of this research explores the efforts of LGBTQ+ teachers to challenge heteronormativity in class (Leonardi and Staley, 2021) which reinforces Richard's (2015) finding that this work has often fallen onto the shoulders of minority teachers, which evidently limits the wider impact of this work. For LGBTQ+ teachers, being a disrupter of heteronormativity is a complex position to hold in schools (Gray, 2013;Llewellyn and Reynolds, 2021).…”

Intergenerational Queer Method(ologie)s: Dialogues in Literacy Research

“…I similarly applaud Jack's inclination to look toward critical trans pedagogies, not only because of its personal resonance for them, but because of the very important work being done there. Keenan (2017) argued that critical trans pedagogy requires what he calls “unscripted gender by analyzing gender scripts and imagining alternatives, whether we are teachers or students, or most often both.” We see a model of this in Leonardi and Staley's (2021) article in which they, like Jack, explore the question of what is beyond inclusion. They examine the practice of Laura, a teacher in a first-grade classroom where she named students’ assumptions around gender, and Leonardi and Staley call, drawing on Kumashiro, this “common sense.” They interrogate common sense.…”