Heterosexist Discourses and Disruptions: School-Based Insights and Activism

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Diversity, Discourse, and Disruptions in Local Contexts

Abstract

Building on the theme, “to know is not enough,” this research focuses on the heterosexist discourses circulated in a public school and the social activism that students engaged in to disrupt those discourses. Indeed, it is not enough to know that there was homophobic talk in their school; by becoming critical ethnographers and discourse analysts these allies built a deeper understanding of the way that talk fed into larger heterosexist discourses and then took action disrupting the heterosexism in their school community. Such school-based studies are critical to revealing the daily interactions that build hostile environments and help us to understand how to interrupt such discourses and behaviors, as well as build discourses and knowledge that affirm diversity in schools.

Author

• Sara Lewis-Bernstein Young, Worcester State University