Elizabeth Atkinson

The sound of silence: talking about sexual orientation and schooling

This paper arises from an online discussion project in the United Kingdom, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, in which higher education students and staff were invited to respond to a series of statements about sexual orientation in the context of schooling. This paper suggests that the silence of relative non‐participation may have been exacerbated by other levels of silence operating within the wider social, political and educational context of the project. Analysis of data from the web forums revealed the perception of children as asexual beings, the sexualisation of homosexuality, and a tendency to separate the public and private domains. We also found some political correctness reflecting the legitimised diversity discourses operating within the university context without necessarily addressing the more uncomfortable questions behind them. Participants also imagined anxieties on the part of parents, teachers or pupils and diverted the discussion to other topics of concern, which may have served to protect them from direct engagement with the issues under discussion. In combination, we suggest that these factors create multiple layers of silence that serve to support the construction and maintenance of heteronormativity as well as demonstrating the power of the heterosexual matrix in action.

Un‐believing the matrix: queering consensual heteronormativity

Two key concepts arising from Butler’s work are the heterosexual matrix – the conflation of sex‐gender‐sexuality which leads to the normalisation of heterosexuality – and performative reinscription – the discursive process by which the marginalised Other brings new meanings to normative identity constructions. While we have found both concepts useful, we consider the extent to which the very act of naming – or in Althusser’s words, hailing – the heterosexual matrix reifies it. Drawing on our own research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in primary schools, we consider disruptions (breaking what Butler describes as echo‐chains) and reinscriptions (forging new ones) as approaches to queering consent. This vision requires disorganisation rather than resistance and replaces the metaphor of the matrix as a system of externally imposed rules with an understanding of how the matrix – to the extent that it exists at all – relies on hegemony as organised consent.

‘No Outsiders’: Moving beyond a discourse of tolerance to challenge heteronormativity in primary schools

In this paper we describe a UK‐based participatory action research project that looks beyond the discourse of tolerance to investigate and challenge heteronormative processes in primary schools through reflective action research. This 28‐month ESRC‐funded project supports 15 primary teachers working in schools in three regions of the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own schools and classrooms. In this paper we will examine how the original principles on which the project design was based have manifested themselves throughout the course of the project, drawing upon examples of classroom practice and reflective discussions among project team members. We will explore how designing intentionally for collective participation has produced spaces for people to do and think in ways that have not only gone beyond what we imagined but have also challenged and sometimes contradicted our own ways of thinking.

Education for Diversity in a Multisexual Society: Negotiating the contradictions of contemporary discourse

In spite of recent significant changes to the National Curriculum in England and Wales, including the introduction of personal, social and health education and citizenship, the subjects of sexuality and sexual identity remain virtually untouched in English primary and secondary schools. While diversity of sexual orientation is acknowledged in new government guidance on sex and relationship education, it receives no explicit recognition elsewhere in the curriculum. In this article, the author examines the current social, political and legal context within which this curriculum is situated, and its often contradictory intersections with popular culture. Drawing on current research into sexuality, gender construction and heteronormative forces in education, the author outlines a complex and contradictory network of forces which simultaneously exploit and undermine non-heterosexual lifestyles and relationships, and examines the way in which these discourses permeate both the school and wider society. The author considers ways in which these intersections and contradictions might be used as a means of challenging compulsory heterosexuality within and beyond the school.

Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school

The present paper interrogates the ways in which school is produced as a particular bounded place (or collection of places) where sexuality, and particularly non‐heterosexuality, is carefully policed by these boundaries. Drawing upon data generated in primary schools during a nationwide action research project (‘No Outsiders’), we focus on three very different school places: the classroom, the staffroom and a school‐based after‐school art club. Our analysis engages with the contingency of place‐making to show that place is neither a unitary experience nor a neutral stage upon which social relations are enacted. The three vignettes analysed offer insights into the critical potential of consciously and persistently working across (apparently) boundaried spaces within and beyond schools.

Dangerous Spaces: Constructing and Contesting Sexual Identities in an Online Discussion Forum

This paper explores ways in which the research design of an anonymous online discussion forum on sexual orientation and schooling fostered the creation, maintenance and/or disruption of linguistic constructions of participant identity. The paper focuses on the presentation of self and the performance of sex–gender–sexuality within a research environment carefully designed as a ‘safe space’: an environment in which the body is conspicuous by its absence, and the construction and performance of identity relies on language alone. We explore the lines of power operating firstly between ourselves as researchers and the discussion participants, and secondly between the participants themselves, and consider the particular complexities involved in both creating and researching an online environment where simply to take part is to be at risk, and where the intervention or participation of the researchers may act both as a silencing mechanism and as a source of danger.

Strategic Embodiment in Virtual Spaces: Exploring an on-line discussion about sexualities equality in schools

This paper analyses patterns of participation on a voluntary anonymous Web-based discussion forum, open to students and faculty in one UK university, concerning sexualities equality in schools. Analysis revealed that participants often rejected the security of anonymity and strategically embodied themselves and others (as gay, straight, parents, etc.) to provide authority and ethical grounding for certain arguments. These embodied arguments invited engagement and promoted dialogue. We found that while personal embodiments were crucial for meaningful interaction, they also brought the risk of personalizing systematic inequality and fostering a victimization discourse. In the light of this, we argue that both individual and collective perspectives are crucial for promoting sexualities equality in school.