What is Queer Pedagogy?
In this short video, Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy Specialist, Justin D. Wright provides a brief introduction to Queer Pedagogy.
Queer Pedagogy seeks to provide a framework in which sexual and gender minorities and their lived experiences can be validated in educational spaces. This requires an understanding of the unique challenges Queer students face both inside and outside of the classroom and campus. It’s also important for us to recognize the role of language has in the past and present of Sexual and Gender minorities in the United States, and moving forward we seek to recognize and validate people for being their authentic selves while simultaneously not boxing them in with rigid and clearly defined labels. Additionally, recognizing the intersectional aspect of identity can help instructors apply Queer Pedagogy across racial and class lines. Finally, as with all pedagogical frameworks, constant self-reflection and critical assessment by instructors is necessary to ensure its continued implementation.
How do we understand Queer Pedagogy in the Ignatian context at LUC?
Utilizing Queer Pedagogical Frameworks helps us at LUC achieve our goal of cura personalis. This goal, and our drive to achieve it, one of our defining Jesuit values; therefore, pursuing it could very easily outweigh any protests or misgivings by anyone that a Jesuit/Catholic university should not officially adapt this kind of pedagogical framework. Additionally, the intersectional aspect of Queer Pedagogy means that by not implementing it we would doing those at LUC who are both sexual/gender and of other minority groups an active disservice by depriving all of us of approaching the full picture.
What are the key tenets of Queer Pedagogy?
- Understanding the Challenges Queer students face both inside and outside educational spaces.
- Develop/increase awareness of the fact that sexual and gender diversity can and does have a place in language learning and learning in general.
- Recognize and validate the existence of sexual and gender minorities in the classroom.
- Recognize the intersectionality between sexuality/gender identity with other factors such as gender (obviously), race, and class.
What are some resources?
Texts/Manuscripts/Articles/Journals
Black Queer Studies : A Critical Anthology - E. Patrick Johnson, Mae G. Henderson, Sharon Patricia Holland, and Cathy J. Cohen
- A groundbreaking collection of sixteen essays that examines the productive intersection of the fields of black and queer studies.
Queer Pedagogy – Matthew Thomas-Reid
- Queer Pedagogy – Matthew Thomas-Reid
- Queer pedagogy is an approach to educational praxis and curricula emerging in the late 20th century, drawing from the theoretical traditions of poststructuralism, queer theory, and critical pedagogy. The ideas put forth by key figures in queer theory, including principally Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, were adopted in the early 1990s by to posit an approach to education that seeks to challenge heteronormative structures and assumptions in K–12 and higher education curricula, pedagogy, and policy.
Queer pedagogy: Approaches to inclusive teaching, João Nemi Neto
- Queer pedagogy: Approaches to inclusive teaching, João Nemi Neto
- While it is common knowledge that language shapes how we think about gender and sexual identity there is no standard educational practice to create awareness about the place of sexual and gender diversity in the context of language learning. This article draws on queer pedagogy and queer theory to devise teaching practices that acknowledge queer visibility in the classroom.
Troubling Education, Queer Activism and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy – Kevin Kumashiro
- Troubling Education, Queer Activism and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy – Kevin Kumashiro
- Few books have addressed research for teachers to turn to as a resource for classroom practice but here Kumashiro draws on interviews with gay activists as a starting point for discussion of models of reading and challenging oppression.
What Challenges Do LGBTQ Students Face? – Dr. Brian Trager
What are other universities doing?
Columbia University- About Queer Pedagogy
- Columbia University- About Queer Pedagogy
- While it may be common knowledge that language shapes how we think about gender and sexual identity there is no standard educational practice to create awareness about the place of sexual and gender diversity in the context of language learning. The purpose of this site is to serve as a space for educators to draw on queer pedagogy and queer theory to devise collectively teaching practices that acknowledge queer visibility in the classroom.
MSU- How higher education can support LGBTQIA+ student success
- MSU- How higher education can support LGBTQIA+ student success
- Q&A with Kristen Renn, professor higher, adult, and lifelong education on how higher education facilitates can set LGBTQ+ students up for success.
UCLA- LGBT Resource Center
Queer Pedagogy seeks to provide a framework in which sexual and gender minorities and their lived experiences can be validated in educational spaces. This requires an understanding of the unique challenges Queer students face both inside and outside of the classroom and campus. It’s also important for us to recognize the role of language has in the past and present of Sexual and Gender minorities in the United States, and moving forward we seek to recognize and validate people for being their authentic selves while simultaneously not boxing them in with rigid and clearly defined labels. Additionally, recognizing the intersectional aspect of identity can help instructors apply Queer Pedagogy across racial and class lines. Finally, as with all pedagogical frameworks, constant self-reflection and critical assessment by instructors is necessary to ensure its continued implementation.