Queer Pedagogy

Embeddedness Discourses comprise perspectives on learning that refuse separations of self from other and individual from collective. Perceived boundaries among persons and peoples are understood as heuristic conveniences, as collective phenomena are recognized to unfold from and to be enfolded in individual phenomena. Phrased differently, collective forms are understood as learning bodies.

Socio-Cultural Theory begins with the assertion that what is learnable begins as externalized possibilities, which learners gradually internalize through imitation of others, rehearsal with others, and other modes of participation in culturally relevant activities. Social interaction is thus stressed as prior and fundamental to cognition; consciousness and cognition are the products of socialization.

Embodiment Discourses comprise perspectives on learning that refuse a separation of mental and physical. Mental and physical are understood as integrated and inseparable aspects of the body. Phrased differently, the body is not seen as something that a learner learns through, but as the learner. Correspondingly, behaviors are not seen as goals or indications of learning, but as integral elements of learning.

Activist Discourses are focused on interrogating the entrenched narratives and structures that infuse, lend support to, and help to perpetuate social norms and cultural institutions. Oriented by the conviction that there are no “neutral” acts or ideas, and critically attentive to the collective roots of personal convictions, Activist Discourses aim for deep understandings in order to inform and orient justice-oriented thinking and acting.

Post-Structuralism is a response to earlier theories. Asserting that neither underlying structures (i.e., Structuralism) nor subjective experience (i.e., Phenomenology) are adequate to understand the meaning and significance of an object, Post-Structuralism argues that such understanding entails interrogation/deconstruction of both what is present (i.e., the meaningful/significant object) and what is absent (i.e., the mostly implicit systems of knowledge that define the object and render it meaningful/significant).

Proponents of Critical Pedagogy see formal education as inherently political – meaning that teaching and learning cannot be dissociated from issues of social justice. The overarching aim of Critical Pedagogy is the development of a “critical consciousness” – that is, awareness of the often-invisible connections between oppressions and the social, political, and cultural conditions that surround those oppressions.