Dennis A. Francis – författare

Offering a vital, critical contribution to debates on gender, sexuality and schooling in South Africa, this book highlights how South African educational practices, discourses and structures normalize cisheteronormativity, along with how these are resisted within schools and through contemporary forms of activism.

Not only does it add fresh insights to the existing research literature on gender, sexualities and schooling, it also underscores the valuable contributions of queer and transgender social movements, which have made influential legislative, teaching, learning and support contributions to education. Drawing on ethnographic research with queer and transgender activists, teachers, school managers, parents and school attending youth, the book provides everyday real-life quotes and observations offering a deeply critical contribution to the debates on gender and sexualities, education and activism. Using spatial and affect theories, it troubles the assumptions that frame this field of research to make a novel contribution to the national and international literature and research.

The book provides research-based insights for thinking about and calls for informed action to challenging cisheteronormativity within and beyond schools.

Offering a vital, critical contribution to debates on gender, sexuality and schooling in South Africa, this book highlights how South African educational practices, discourses and structures normalize cisheteronormativity, along with how these are resisted within schools and through contemporary forms of activism.

Not only does it add fresh insights to the existing research literature on gender, sexualities and schooling, it also underscores the valuable contributions of queer and transgender social movements, which have made influential legislative, teaching, learning and support contributions to education. Drawing on ethnographic research with queer and transgender activists, teachers, school managers, parents and school attending youth, the book provides everyday real-life quotes and observations offering a deeply critical contribution to the debates on gender and sexualities, education and activism. Using spatial and affect theories, it troubles the assumptions that frame this field of research to make a novel contribution to the national and international literature and research.

The book provides research-based insights for thinking about and calls for informed action to challenging cisheteronormativity within and beyond schools.

In this book, Francis highlights the tension between inclusion and sexual orientation, using this tension as an entry to explore how LGB youth experience schooling.  Drawing on research with teachers and LGB youth, this book troubles the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity and, by doing so, provides a critical exploration and analysis of how curriculum, pedagogy, and policy reproduces compulsory heterosexuality in schools.  The book makes visible the challenges of teaching sexuality diversity in South African schools while highlighting its potential for rethinking conceptions of the social and cultural representations thereof. Francis links questions of policy and practice to wider issues of society, sexuality, social justice and highlights its implications for teaching and learning. The author encourages policy makers, teachers, and scholars of sexualities and education to develop further questions and informed action to challenge heteronormativity and heterosexism.        

This book brings together leading scholars researching the field of gender, sexuality, schooling, queer activism, and social movements within different cultural contexts. With contributions from more than fifteen countries, the chapters bring fresh insights for students and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, education, and social movements in the Global North and South. The book draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions offering rich and multidisciplinary essays from scholars and activists in the field focusing on outreach work of QSM (Queer Social Movements) in schools, queer activism in educational settings, and the role of QSMs in supporting and informing queer youth.