Troubling Exclusionary Normativities: Thinking Queerly About Curriculum in Elite Boys’ Schooling

• In Event: More-Than-Human Matterings and Curricular Troublings, (Re)Centerings, and Noticings

Abstract

This paper disrupts the ‘exclusionary normativities’ of research on elite boys’ schools by combining queer theory with disruptive epistemologies of post-qualitative inquiry. Drawing on two studies exploring what alumni learned through curricula at these institutions, the authors jointly explore queer approaches to researching privileged masculinities, incorporating their diverse queer lives, identities, and histories. Employing methods of written reflections/memories, this collaborative research practice generates fresh insights into the curriculum in elite boys’ schooling as a cultural site for the (re)production of social inequalities. This approach demonstrates the importance of researchers bringing their own subjectivities, emotions and affects during research to produce meaningful and rich knowledge about how the identity work of privileged men/boys functions to perpetuate harmful normativities.

Authors

• Claire Charles, Deakin University

• Adam Howard, Colby College