Resisting Heteronormative Traditions to Stage the Possible: An Ethnodrama

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Harmonizing Arts Engagement in Teaching, Research, and Practice (Table 6)

Abstract

Concerned with education being predisposed heteronormative, we engage with queer theory and pedagogy to destabilize heteronormative constructs. Guided by ABER—and in particular ethnodramatic practices—we reveal our lived teaching experiences over the course of three months. The ethnodrama showcases the queering of elementary curricula and its pedagogical implications. In weaving aspects of queer curriculum and pedagogy into classroom practices, we reveal how educators can digress from previously accepted practices and ask questions that challenge heterosexual normalisations. The inquiry illuminates the theme of constructing educational possibilities by demonstrating how all teachers can decenter, destabilize, and deconstruct (hetero)normative practices and evokes the possibility for students to develop their own unique identities through the arts.

Authors

• Matthew Yanko, University of British Columbia

• Henry Lee, University of British Columbia