The Interruption of Heteronormativity in Higher Education: Critical Queer Pedagogies (Queer Studies and Education)

This book examines how heteronormativity in higher education can be interrupted and resisted. Located within the theoretical framework of queer and critical pedagogy and based on extensive empirical research, the author explores the dynamics of heteronormativity and its interruption on professional courses in a range of higher education institutions. Reactions to attempt to interrupt it were nuanced: while strategies of contested engagement, avoidance and retreat were expressed, heterosexualities were largely un-examined and un-articulated. ‘Coming out’ needs to be a pedagogical act, carried out concurrently with the interruptions of other social constructions and binary oppositions. The author calls for co-created and co-held meta-reflexive and liminal spaces that emphasise inter-subjectivity, encounters, and working in the moment. These spaces must de-construct and reconstruct pedagogical power and knowledge to promote collective intersubjective consciousnesses, and widen the visionof the reflective practitioner to that of the pedagogical practitioner. This pioneering book is a call to action to all those concerned with interrupting and problematising presumed binary categories of sexuality within the heterosexual matrix.

Michael Seal is Reader in Critical Pedagogy at Newman University, UK.