General description

Since the early 1990s, scholars in the US, UK, and Australia have researched queer pedagogy. It is an umbrella term (Luhmann 1998) for, among others, the reflection of the philosophy of pedagogy from a deconstructivist and non-normative perspective, the empirical research on queer teachers and/or queer students (Fifield & Lee 2002), the development of anti-oppressive teaching methods (Kumashiro 2002), curriculum development, and implementing queer perspectives and queer contents to the syllabus (Harbeck 1992).

At the moment queer pedagogy is a hot topic in education policy in Germany. Increasingly, federal regions – responsible for education in kindergarten, school and university – have made political efforts to include ‘acceptance of sexual diversity’ in their new education plans. They have met strong resistance from conservative teachers and parents criticizing this directive as an educational, moral, and ideological re-education under the ‘Ideology of the Rainbow’. The white heterosexual family seems to continue as an explicit and implicit ideal. This discourse illustrates that gender and sexual discrimination continue to exist in large parts of Germany. Results from the FRA Report 2013—on the situation in the European Union—show that LGBT persons regularly suffer from not being able to be themselves, neither in school, nor at work, or in public. In every EU Member State more than 80% of the respondents recall negative comments or bullying of the LGBT youth in schools (FRA 2013).

In addition, current empirical studies in sociology and educational research (e.g. Klocke 2012, Hofmann 2013) prove that teachers in the German school system are not well enough trained to reflect on heteronormative power structures or to prevent gender and sexuality discriminations in educational institutions (Krüger/Huch 2010, Kleiner 2014). Without doubt, future teachers need competence in the social construction of gender, culture, identity, norms, and otherness. For this reason, my own PhD study is focused on teachers’ hidden attitudes about norms and values of gender, sexuality, and desire. In following Butler’s theory of subjectification (1990, 2004), gender and sexual identity can be seen and understood as a product of hegemonic discourses and cultural practices in the form of performative acts instead of biological facts or something that has only been formed and fixed in early childhood. This theoretical framework allows me to examine teachers’ negotiating, teaching and speech acting as a social process that depends on both social norms and the will to repeat or to negotiate those norms.

References Butler, Judith (1990): Gender Trouble. New York & London, Routledge. Butler, Judith (2004): Undoing Gender. New York, Taylor & Francis. Bogner/Menz (2009): Das Experteninterview: Theorie, Methode, Anwendung. Fifield, Steve & Swain H.L. (2002): Heteronormativity and common sense in science (teacher) education. In: Kissen, Rita M. (ed.): Getting ready for Benjamin: Preparing teachers for sexual diversity in the classroom. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 177-189. FRA (European Union Agency For Fundamental Rights) (2013): EU LGBT survey – Results at a glance. Harbeck, Karen M. (1992): Coming out of the classroom closet: Gay and lesbian students, teachers and curricula. New York, Harrington Park. Huch, Sarah/Krüger, Dirk (2008): "Jeder sollte lieben dürfen, wen er lieben will." - Einstellungen und Wertehaltungen von SchülerInnen zur sexuellen Orientierung unter Gender-Aspekten. In: Krüger, Dirk et al (ed.): Erkenntnisweg Biologiedidaktik 7, p. 37-50. Hoffmann, Markus (2013): Männlichkeiten und Sexualerziehung. Lösungsstrategien ambivalenter Unterrichtserwartungen. In: Kleina et al (Hg.): Gender in Bewegung. Aktuelle Spannungsfelder der Gender und Queer Studies. Transcript, Bielefeld, p. 273-288. Keller, Reiner (2011): Diskursforschung. Eine Einführung für SozialwissenschaftlerInnen. 4. Auflage, Springer VS, Wiesbaden. Kleiner, Bettina (2014): Que(e)r durch den Schulalltag? Annäherung an eine machtkritische Lesart von Differenz am Beispiel eines Schülerinterviews. In: Schmidt, Friederike et al (ed.): "Selbstbestimmung und Akzeptanz sexueller und geschlechtlicher Vielfalt. Lebenswirklichkeiten, Forschungsergebnisse und Bildungskonzepte. Springer VS, Wiesbaden, p. 261-274. Klocke, Ulrich (2012): Akzeptanz sexueller Vielfalt an Berliner Schulen. Eine Befragung zu Verhalten, Einstellungen und Wissen zu LSBT und deren Einflussvariablen. Im Auftrag der Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Wissenschaft, Berlin. Kumashiro, Kevin K. (2002): Troubling education. Queer activism and antioppressive pedagogy. New York & London, RoutledgeFalmer. Luhmann, Susanne (1998): Queering/Querying Pedagogy? Or, Pedagogy is a Pretty Queer Thing. In: Pinar, William F. (ed.): Queer Theory in Education. Mahwah, Lawrence Erlbaum, p. 141-151.