| Author(s): | Thomas-Reid, M. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| Publication: | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education |
| Citation: | Thomas-Reid, M. (2021). Queer pedagogical theory. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1398 |
| Section on webpage: | Queer Pedagogy Literature |
| Tenets: | Considering alternative histories and narratives. Examining how gender, intersecting with other social categories, structures our lives, learning, and knowledge production, access to resources and information. Honoring diversity and lived experiences through intersectional approaches. |
| Annotation: | (Summary) Queer pedagogical theory might be best thought of as a mindset to approaching the classroom derived from the lived experience of queerness. Starting with a consideration of what is to be queer, one can begin to develop an understanding of how queerness as an identity might inform a decentering of classroom spaces that allows for marginalized positionalities to disrupt normative assumptions about how we approach myriad aspects of classroom experiences. After tracing the theoretical lineage of queer pedagogy and the theory that informs it, specific pedagogical aspects such as method, texts, and assessment can be cast in a queer context. With openness, fluidity, and the embracing of the unknown, the queer pedagogue holds space for new sites of epistemological inquiry which moves toward not inclusion, rather a disruption of the colonized lineage of the classroom. |