Teacher Negotiation(s) of Sexuality Education: A Queer of Color Analysis in Urban Middle Schools

• In Event: Liberatory Pedagogies: Understanding Holistic Approaches to Sexuality in Educational Research

Abstract

This paper reflects on the way urban middle teachers negotiate instances of sexuality in their classrooms and provides a queer of color analysis (QOCA) to examine this case study. McCready (2013) argues QOCA can be viewed as a form of intellectual activism toward social justice aims when it is disrupting dominant ideas and practices in educational studies. Dominant ideas and practices about sexuality education suggest it is overemphasized and inappropriate among middle school youth fueled by homophobia, transphobia and anti-LGBT discourse. This work problematizes those ideas and considers how sexuality actually emerges in urban middle school classrooms. In the ongoing debate about sexuality education, middle schools are a crucial yet under-researched area. Additionally, cross-curricular strategies in sexuality education offer promising results of successful, inclusive school environments have been fostered not just through traditional health or sex education classes, but through subjects like social studies, English, physical education, mathematics, music, and art (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2021). Thus, this multi-site case study explores how educators from Humanities (English) and Health (SEL and PE Health) classes in two urban middle schools understand and navigate instances of sexuality. This research extends sexuality studies on middle school teacher pedagogy and provides a cross-curricular case study comparison with an emphasis on the influence of school context. This work highlights a need for more widespread understanding of holistic sexuality and pedagogical support for middle school educators, as those in lower-resourced schools with more racially minoritized students received less sexuality instruction compared to their peers in high resourced schools. While both schools highlight multicultural approaches in the classrooms, critical and decolonial approaches were emphasized in the well-resourced school. This disparity underscores the need for more equitable approaches to sexuality education (Coloma 2024; James, 2010; McCready, 2013).

Author

• Monique Y. Perry, University of Pennsylvania