Theoretical Framework and Key Concepts

Abstract

The chapter begins by arguing that utilising Herz and Johansson’s (Journal of Homosexuality, 62(8), 1009–1120, 2015) model of heteronormativity is most useful for studying higher education contexts. It then argues that critical realism gives us a bridge between critical and queer pedagogy, giving us a number of useful heuristic tools including Archer’s (The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity. Cambridge University Press, 2010) morphogenetic approach and typology of reflectors. In seeking to address critiques of accounts of heteronormativity for not sufficiently foregrounding intersecting issues of race and gender, I advocate for incorporating an intersectional approach and challenging traditional standpoint perspectives, at least in relation to sexuality. It then argues for using Orne’s (Sociological Quarterly, 54(2), 229–253, 2013) and Black’s (Meanings and Typologies of Duboisian Double Consciousness Within 20th Century United States Racial Dynamics, 2012) re-conceptualisation of double consciousness (Du Bois, 1906) as an aim for the intersubjective consciousness that the meta-reflective wishes to develop, along with concepts of stigma resistance.