Inviting Queer Ideas Into the Science Classroom

• In Event: Roundtable Session 54
  In Roundtable Session: Queer and Indigenous Perspectives on Science Education

Abstract

The Swedish syllabus for sexual education addresses love, sexuality and relations. This implies a possible tension between the biological and well established definition of sex and later non-dichotomized perspectives, which is the research object of this study. A queer theory framework that visualizes the hetero norm and that elicits occasions to question the norm is applied on a data set of video observations made in two classes with 14-year-old students. The results illustrate how the hetero norm was reconstructed, but also challenged. It is concluded that a challenge of the hierarchy of positions is subsequent to the challenge of the dichotomization and differentiation of positions. To conclude, the framework seems fruitful to illuminate equality issues.

Author

• Mattias Lundin, Linnaeus university