Sexuality and Schools

This article presents data from a six-month participatory action research project. Researchers included one doctoral student and eight high-school students in New York City, all of whom identified as non-heterosexual and/or gender non-conforming. The research analyzed language and behavior in school, as well as state anti-bullying and sex education policies, and found their application to be mixed, with high-school students not receiving even HIV/AIDS lessons in some cases, even though they are mandated by the state. Young people speaking in the research presented in this article ask for a consideration of safety that includes their need for accurate and comprehensive information about sex, sexuality and gender -not just for themselves but also for their peers, teachers and school authorities. They request that consideration of the health and safety of LGBTQ youth needs to include more than just anti-bullying protections and HIV/AIDS materials, and that biological arguments about sexuality and gender roles should be called into question by curricular materials in favor of a fuller history of sexual and gendered identities. These changes, they suggest, may improve their level of belonging in their schools -a key factor in their physical and mental health and safety during adolescence.

From the blurb:

This book brings together leading academics and practitioners working in the area of language, gender, sexuality and education, consolidating recent developments and moving the field forward in a contemporary context. This unique and timely volume captures current themes, debates, theories and methods in the field, and will be of interest to scholars and practitioners working around the world in the areas of Applied Linguistics, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Education, Sociology and Discourse Studies.

This paper presents data from a qualitative study of urban high school students that asked students to reflect on the experiences of their lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning peers. The focus group participants wrote letters to an imaginary new student at their school, discussed what they see and hear in their schools, and kept journals recording a week's worth of observations. The writings and conversations are analyzed in this paper through the lens of Foucault's Care of the Self in order to understand how young people characterize their own and their peers’ actions and words as ethical moves in the fashioning of themselves as sexual subjects.

O compartilhamento de nudes por dispositivos móveis entre estudantes de uma escola da rede municipal de Duque de Caxias desestabilizou o cotidiano da instituição de ensino. Tal fato, ocorrido em 2016, impulsionou a escola à realização de um projeto que discutisse questões de gênero e sexualidade em suas práticas pedagógicas cotidianas. Desse modo, realizamos pesquisa participante no espaço da escola, fazendo uso de observações, entrevistas com sujeitos da comunidade escolar e análises de documentos, para investigar a condução do projeto no que diz respeito a problematização destas questões. Mobilizamos como teorizações a noção foucaultiana de acontecimento e os estudos de gênero localizados nas perspectivas pós-estruturalistas pelos trabalhos de Judith Butler, Guacira Louro, Richard Miskolci, Paul B. Preciado, entre outros/as. O acontecimento do nudes provocou importantes deslocamentos no cotidiano escolar da instituição, repensando, problematizando verdades em relação a questões de gênero e sexualidade ao colocar em xeque as relações de poder que produzem efeitos de realidade sobre os corpos.