Queer Youth (Not) Knowing: Experiences of Epistemic (In)Justice in a Secondary Classroom

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Nine
  In Roundtable Session: Epistemic Inquiries: Justice-Oriented Ways of Learning and Knowing (Table 13)

Abstract

Drawing from a yearlong literacy ethnography at a Midwestern high school in which I explored youth and adults reading, writing, and talking about sexual and gender diversity, in this presentation I focus on one literacy learning context, a co-taught sophomore humanities that combined English language arts and social studies. Engaging theories of epistemic (in)justice, the findings highlight the experiences of queer youth – especially one queer youth of Color, Camden– as knowers in the context of an LGBTQ+-inclusive classroom curriculum. I describe the language and social processes of epistemic harms with respect to distortions of credibility and homonormative assimilationist requirements.

Author

• Ryan Schey, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author