Read more
This book provides stories of how Lesbian and Gay
teachers in Australia employed adaptive rituals of
conformity and nonconformity within their schools.
This study set in Western Australia, depended on
these teachers telling their own story around
homophobic distancing and their repression. Through
private interviews and collaboration with the
co-participants the book sets out to makes sense of
the ''performances'' lesbian and gay teachers chose to
enact in the educational culture in Western Australia
around the time of Gay Law Reform in 2002. The
stories of their everyday experience of as teachers
present layers of gestured meanings, symbolic
processes, cultural codes and contested sexuality and
gender ideologies. This book also demonstrates that
there are real social practices in schools that
assist in the recognition and construction of
sexuality and gender identity. The very different
stories of Lesbian and Gay teachers reveal various
interpretive strategies of how one can belonging in a
dominant homophobic culture. The book furthers our
understanding of the contemporary identity formation
issues of a hitherto invisible and silenced group of
educators.
About the author
Dr Tarquam McKenna is an Associate Professor at VictoriaUniversity in Melbourne. His work in interdisciplinary artseducation focuses mainly on equitable learning and teachingopportunities. He is very interested in equity, identity andinclusive education practices for disenfranchised Lesbian and Gayteachers and their students in Australia.
