Examining and Reimagining Constructions of Adolescence/ts, Sexuality, and Gender in Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Grounded in concerns about deficit-oriented understandings of adolescence/ts that often circulate unproblematically in educational discourses, practices, and policies, this symposium has two central purposes. First, it problematizes dominant ways secondary-aged youth are typically conceptualized and positioned within education as “adolescents” and through ideologies of “adolescent development,” including how these ideas shape secondary curriculum and instruction. Second, this panel demonstrates possibilities for reconceptualizing pedagogical practices that are grounded in more expansive and complicated understandings of youth. Thus, this panel offers both an epistemological critique of dominant discourses of adolescence/ts in education and research-based understandings of pedagogical approaches that resist and make explicit such dominant discourses.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Division B - Section 4: Policies and the Politics of Curriculum

Chair

• Robert Petrone, University of Missouri

Papers

• Uncovering the Agenda: A Critical Discourse Analysis of BookLooks.org's "Report Cards" for LGBTQIA+ Titles - Jenna Spiering, University of South Carolina; Kate E Kedley, Rowan University

• Beyond the Notorious: A Critical Youth Studies Examination of a Youth Adaptation About Justice Ginsburg - Lauren M Colley, University of Cincinnati; Mark A. Sulzer, University of Cincinnati

• Text Selection and Constructions of Youth: English Language Arts Teachers’ Decisions to Teach or Avoid Problematic Authors - Mike P. Cook, Auburn University; Ashley Summer Boyd, Washington State University; Brandon L. Sams, Iowa State University

• “We’re Kinda Stuck With These Portrayals”: Youth Critiquing and Revising Media Depictions of Adolescence/ts - Robert Petrone, University of Missouri; Ermal Hoxha, University of Missouri

Discussant

• Nancy L. Lesko, Teachers College, Columbia University