Unpacking Teacher Identity to Queer Elementary Curriculum

• In Event: Curriculums of Place and Identity

Abstract

This paper explores how preservice teachers queer elementary literacy curriculum. Using
narrative inquiry, the authors interviewed three preservice teachers about how their identities relate to and inform their attempts to queer instruction in their clinical teaching placements. The authors interrogate current, heteronormative instructional practices through critical whiteness and queer theory. The authors facilitate critical peer groups with participants to support their ongoing understanding and enactment of sexual and gender identity discussions, as well as in disrupting heteronormative practices in elementary classrooms. In their findings, the authors expand on how they might support university students bridge queer theory to practice, even when that may lead to personal and professional dissonance with colleagues.

Keywords: queer, queering, critical whiteness, teacher identity, preservice teachers

Authors

• Scott Sundstrom, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author

• Laurie Elisabet Hahn Ganser, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author