The Discourse(s) of Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Posthuman Approach in a Teacher Education Classroom

• In Event: Child and Teacher Education From a Posthuman Lens

Abstract

Drawing on data collected in a year-long ethnographic study in an elementary teacher education classroom, in this presentation, I explore how discourses around gender and sexuality were produced, contested, and reproduced as diverse students and the instructor (myself) intra-acted with the human and nonhuman others (e.g., walls, physical distance, material objects) in what is called the “Deep South” of the U.S. Thinking with Barad and Scollon, I engage various forms of data, including audio/video recorded classroom material-discursive practices and follow-up interviews with the students. Findings show the ways a critical posthuman approach created openings for diverse individuals to re-medy, re-pair, and critically (be)come together in (un)making sense of complex, hegemonic discourses circulating in classroom contexts and our everyday lives.

Author

• Maverick Yunqiang Zhang, Hunter College - CUNY