182 - Thematic Session. Sexuality, Politics, and Education: Imagining New Conversations

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Sexuality education is a perennial site of controversy in U.S. politics. Through debates over abstinence-only education, the place of LGBTQ sexuality in instruction, and the rights of LGBTQ students and teachers, communities, advocates, and policy makers articulate their visions of sexual intimacy, well-being, and justice. These visions consistently intersect with stakeholders’ ideas about youth, race, gender, and class. Their arguments invoke and incite both emotional passions and the presumed dispassion of science. Thus, political debates about how we teach and learn about sexuality are affective and discursive contests about much more than education. In these debates, communities narrate possibilities for themselves and others—lives and desires worth pursuing and supporting. This session will bring together four social researchers—senior, midcareer, and rising scholars—whose work interrogates contemporary debates and discourse surrounding sexuality and education. Panelists will address the following questions, among others.
•How are science, rights, and emotion deployed in debates over sexuality and education?
•What potential do digital storytelling and other new narrative media have to interrupt entrenched understandings of sexuality and education?
•How might sociologists intervene in political debates to redirect their focus and tenor?

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Jessica Fields, San Francisco State University

Presider

• Jessica Fields, San Francisco State University

Individual Presentations

• Renegades or Role Models? The Ambivalent Status of Contemporary LGBTQ Schoolteachers - Catherine Connell, Boston University

• South Side Stories: Using Digital Stories to Craft New Narratives of Youth Sexuality - Melissa Gilliam, University of Chicago

• Beyond Bullying: Disrupting Queer Anticipatory Practices in United States High Schools - Laura Mamo, San Francisco State University; Jessica Fields, San Francisco State University; Jen Gilbert, York University; Nancy Lesko, Columbia University

• Why Can't I Be a Professional Jane and Fincher? Social Geographies of Sexuality Education in Diverse Divided Cities - Lance Trevor McCready, University of Toronto