The Queer Curriculum

Queering the Curriculum

Queering the curriculum came about as a result of a few ideas that came together, discussions with the museum education coordinators. Book clubs that led to more expansive thinking about education to name a few: camp grounds, crispr and genitals, fairytales and (a bit on the nose but) queering the curriculum. Although a bit outdated now the curriculum idea has been distributed to over 300 teachers and presented to many more as a framework for disrupting education.

I’ve written a small paper on the origins and purpose of the framework.

Introduction

In order to discuss the development of a queer curriculum one must first land on a succinct definition of what a curriculum actually is. This is no easy task, as according to Ladson, Billings et al across the 67 pieces of literature they reviewed about curriculum only five provided specific definitions for the term curriculum (Ladson, Billings et al, 1995, P.165). A relatively straightforward definition that can be applied to the context discussed in this commentary is that of Surbhi, an all-encompassing “knowledge skills and competencies students should learn during a study" (Surbhi, 2017).

Having reviewed and settled on a definition of curriculum I became less convinced that in my educational context we actually have a curriculum in the truest sense and that we may just have a set of syllabi. That is not an issue I can tackle within the limit of 4000 words, however I can offer some ideas for how we can disrupt certain curricular norms and provide a more inclusive curriculum for all students.

The issue of an equitable curriculum is something that I have long been interested in, however this issue has become increasingly urgent in nature as the political climate around queer issues becomes increasingly tense. A particularly pertinent issue within my institution is the number of children asking to use gender neutral pronouns, upon seeking out further training to find out how other schools were handling the complexities of the situation my colleagues and I found ourselves accidently attending an anti-trans conference in which issues of trans-identity were referred to as “social contagion” (TransgenderTrend 2021). The point being that issues of LGBTQIA+ identity and well-being remain pertinent social issues that have not gone away in what appears to be an age of enhanced social inclusion. A particularly enlightening view on this conversation can be found in the Contrapoints discussion of JK Rowling and current anti-trans sentiments echoed in the media, this discussion is emblematic of the continued vilification and policing of queer bodies. (Contrapoints, 2020).

Core Concepts

The creation of a queer curriculum involves a process known as “queering”, a post-structural approach that applies queer theory to question systems of power and interrogates and attempts to disrupt normative concepts of identity (Barker, 2016, P.3). This is also coupled with the notion of “regularization” of queering as discussed by Atkins, a process by which the mere presence of more queer themes within a system can theoretically help reduce discrimination (Atkins, 2010, P.12).

Furthermore according to Smith et al. expanding the definition of what is considered normal can help alleviate the isolation and anxiety experienced by students that don’t fit normative definitions of identity (Smith et al, 2010 P. 7). Evidently the disruption of norms in this context is heavily rooted in the ideas of the hidden curriculum as the translation of norms and values, the hidden curriculum as the covert notions of “normal” that students pick up on and finally the null curriculum in which we can see the absence of queer themes in the standard curriculum (Wilson, 2005).

This topic can also be heavily related to what Biesta identifies as the three domains of education; subjectification, qualification and socialisation (Biesta, 2015). According to Biesta “real” education happens at the intersection of these three things, when we as teachers are conscious of each domain and how they intersect. It is indeed quite evident in some educational contexts that an over-emphasis on qualification is almost expected if not highly encouraged, a disservice to students that one might argue strays into objectification.

A Brief History of Queering Education

Queer pedagogy or the art of applying queer theory to normative systems is a relatively young discipline, originating in 1993 with the Canadian professors Bryson and Castell, who attempted to disrupt “essentialist theories of identity” in a classroom context (Bryson and Castell, 1993, P.300). Interestingly this first foray into queering education appears to have been an outright failure as Bryson and Castell admitted that in trying to destabilize traditional notions of identity they seemed to have merely highlighted and possible even further entrenched their position in the classroom, leading the conclusion that this is both a necessary and impossible endeavor (Bryson and Castell, 1993, P. 301). The foundational ideas of Bryson and Castell can be coupled with the ideas posited by Britzman as arguing against the traditional “plea for inclusion” approach many movements have taken, in which the disenfranchised group ask for representation within the curriculum (Britzman, 2012, P.300). This approach of “asking” for representation could be seen as serving to further solidify the notion of a “norm” and further position queer individuals as the “other”. We can use the metaphor of a table in this instance, rather than asking for a seat at the normative table, perhaps we should throw away the table and make a larger one that includes more notions of identity? Again I will limit my discussion within the framework of 4000 words and focus only on expanding the existing table, nevertheless the notion of a new table would no doubt excite many an anarchical educator.

Why should we do this?

Curriculum as Control

The notion of the curriculum as a “neutral document of fact” is an oddly pervasive myth that according to Ladson. Billings et al serves to allow the dominant group to “revel in its heritage, while reminding the subordinate group members that they are outsiders”. It is difficult to fully articulate the deafening silence of a curriculum that positions you as the “other” or even omits you entirely. This idea of education as the almost innocent transmission of knowledge and skills is further debunked by Shor as he details what he calls “liberating vs domesticating” education (Shor, 1993, P.2). In fact even a cursory reading of the history of curriculum development would give you an idea of how linked the curriculum is with the values and norms of a particular society (again we can refer to Wilson and the covert curriculum in this instance), I have been intrigued to read how synonymous curriculum development has been with the notion of "control" and in a sense to industrialization and the creation of a workforce under the demands of capitalism as described by Bates (Bates, 2020). 
Smith further illustrates this idea in his discussion of how language can be used to dominate and control as he emphasizes the importance of educators paying attention to the ways words “both written and spoken, impact the lives of students and the greater community (Smith et al, 2010 P. 7). An example of this would be the degree of normativity in the language classroom, most if not all the examples a child is exposed to throughout their learning are normative in nature, “the girl played with her dolls, the boy played with his football’. These notions of both gender and the activities we associate with them are perpetuated throughout the curriculum and reinforce these ideas as “the norm”.

The idea of disrupting these norms can feel to some educators as “unsafe” or risky. Sieben and Wallowitz also have quite a frank perspective on this topic as they assert that no teaching is neutral so avoiding what we view as controversial topics does not in fact make students any safer ( an idea I will return to later) (Sieben and Wallowitz, 2009, P.43). In fact the hidden curriculum can have more of an impact than anything we as educators explicitly say or do and furthermore the "safer" our classroom spaces, the more we silence students for whom school seems foreign, hostile, or irrelevant (Sieben and Wallowitz, 2009, P.45). Furthermore by ignoring glaring inequalities and inadequacies in society we do not serve our students in any sense, once students start to understand that many aspects of their lives are socially constructed, they can begin to “problematize taken-for-granted assumptions about race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as other linguistic constructs designed to maintain the current power structure” (Sieben and Wallowitz, 2009, P. 45). That is to say that educators (like curricula) are not neutral purveyors of fact and in actuality they have a significant role to play in shaping the minds of the people we teach, Smith et al puts it quite clearly by stating “educators must accept their role as defining reality” (Smith et al, 2010 P.7). This idea is probably best illustrated by thinking back to something your own teacher said to you that stuck with you, these impactful moments and statements are frequent and can occur when we least expect them.

The importance of representation 
Although alluded to in the previous paragraph I would like to highlight the value of queering the curriculum. This relates heavily to the previously ideas posited by Biesta of qualification, subjectification and socialization and what he views as the necessary balance of the three “domains”. I would argue that queering could pose a potential solution to tipping the scales towards a balanced approach.

It is relatively easy to link queering the curriculum to subjectification as we encourage students to analyze the self as well as the society, Instead we can look to examples provided by theorists such as Nelson of not trying to make “other” sexual identities seem natural or normal, a queer approach to pedagogy could ask for example how linguistic and cultural practices manage to “naturalize” certain sexual identities while demonizing others (Nelson, 1990, P.375).

In terms of qualification I would like to demonstrate throughout my curricular examples that one can uphold and even enhance rigorous academic standards while queering the curriculum but it is in the realm of socialization that queering really holds its value and besides the IB system does not suffer from a lack of qualification (Biesta, 2009). In this instance we can look to Sedgewick who asserted that “the binary (the notion of two distinct genders) is not only relevant to people who are overtly on the queer side of the spectrum” (Sedgwick, 1990, p.1). In terms of socialisation and how this is represented in the hidden curriculum I would like to use an example from my own teaching. In 2013 I trained as a student teacher in Ireland under some excellent and thought provoking professors. I has a particularly rambunctious class that I was struggling to manage and was advised to pick out the girls that “wanted to be nurses or teachers” and put them beside the most lively boys. The idea was that they would calm and sooth the boys into submission. I recently realized I have probably been unconsciously designing my seating plans according to this framework for the past 9 years. This form of hidden or covert representation is unhelpful for a few reasons. It reduces girls to the role of caretaker and subtly communicates the role of providing emotional support to those around them while allowing others to behave in more dynamic ways, it also reduces the boys to mere caricatures of their gender and fails to address possible underlying causes and dynamics in the classroom. Applying queering to how we socialize our students could counteract well-meaning but awkwardly stereotyped classroom set-ups and leave room for more open expressions of identity and indeed behavior.

Beyond representation

Although I have set up an argument for representation in my previous points I actually wish to go beyond mere representation in my work. As a queer identifying person representing myself and others in the curriculum I am in fact offering a coalition, a model in which the marginalized identities are integral to the construction of a curriculum in which their voices are heard. This would not be provided by a curriculum written by someone who did not identify as queer. This is a conversation that has also arisen through this course and can be seen on the forums as for examples one of the other students will do his KAT on developing a new curricular framework for a particular country, we had a discussion about where the countrypersons perspective would be included in this project and although time and other factors limit us in this instance it begs a wider question, why would you write a curriculum for a group of people while excluding that group of people? This question is irritating, controversial and wholly important, how are teachers supposed to represent a queer curriculum while not occupying that identity themselves? I have tried to get around this by creating a method by which teachers can familiarize themselves with queer theory and provide space for students to contribute through the student voice based questionnaires etc. but the discussion is far from over.

Because we can and we should

Queering can also possibly serve as one of many vehicles for enhancing teacher professionalism and agency, it is an act of resistance against the notion of centralized education in which each teacher delivers the exact same curriculum at the exact same moment regardless of context or perspective, this model is often coupled with the de-professionalization of teachers as has occurred in France where a system of highly prescriptive curriculums have left many educators feeling disenfranchised (Nuffic, 2006). Bates particularly warns against the lack of trust in the professionalism of teachers that seems to continually pervade policy development at a governmental level (Bates, 2020).

There is also a unique opportunity within the framework of the IB system as it is a rather open curriculum that allows a high degree of teacher agency,: That is not to say that the IB curriculum is "neutral" - it is not, it is perhaps more infused with teacher bias than other curricula due to the freedom afforded in the system, it is just perhaps less representative of national interests and therefore perhaps less "effective" at preserving the status quo and represents a greater chance for real social change.

Tolerance? No thanks!

There is a small but not insignificant body or work as well as a general sentiment that there is sufficient work taking place in some schools to provide a more queer inclusive education. According to the Dutch law schools are required to provide an anti-homophobia education, rooted in advocating “acceptance, assimilation”, and tolerance (ECR, 2019). This is simply put, not enough. This notion of “tolerance education” does not serve our students in any sense as it leave notions of normativity un-interrogated and does not challenge the status quo, thus leaving opportunities for enhanced subjectification on the table. According to Sieben and Wallowitz tolerance education “reinforces the normalization of heterosexual identities” or in my own words “yes they are weird but we have to get along” (Sieben and Wallowitz, 2009, P. 45). This idea of tolerating and in many cases “keeping the peace” is also identified as harmful by Ladson, Billings et al who have asserted that African American and white students in the same classroom “ take away very different understandings about the meaning and content of the curriculum…simultaneously valorizing one group while destroying another (Ladson, Billings et al P. 167).

Skills

It is clear that Bates is concerned about the progression of skills within schools (He would argue the balance in most higher education institutes is the mastery of content over the development of skills ), this is once instance where the skills (critical thinking in this case) can be very clearly worked upon from year to year , rooted in the students personal perspective on identity and expanded from their place of understanding, Thus the progression is built into the process of growing up (Bates, 2020).

Possible approaches

Throughout my reading of the fundamental texts of queer pedagogy and curriculum texts I have identified three possible approaches to queering the curriculum,

Democratic

This process vies for the most consensus possible and would maybe align most closely with Infed in terms of ideology as an idealistic values based system that seeks to unite instead of disrupt (Infed 2018). A democratic approach is difficult to enact however as it allows for things such as religious parents opting their child out of anti-homophobia education, Martino and Comming-Potvin take quite a strong stance on this and assert that “Religious institutions have been among the most invasive cultural forces making sure there are negative consequences for sexual minorities” and “if we allow them to opt out it reinforces the self-segregation” furthermore they have also identified an increased desire among teachers to protect oneself to avoid “increased parental surveillance” meaning that opting in or out in a democratic fashion leaves many barriers to equity standing and un-interrogated (Martino and Comming-Potvin, 2006).

Theoretical:

Throughout the course of my research I have identified many of what I might deem “armchair queering practitioners” who theorize endlessly about the possibilities and limitations of various models but struggle to actualize these in any concrete sense. This is also compounded by an issue of “authenticity” that appears frequently in the queer community (speaking from a highly personal and subjective perspective) as they tend to reject ideas that are deemed “too formal” or hierarchical in nature so many attempts to organize the theory into action are thus viewed with suspicion. 
Radical Although a slightly more unpopular idea one can also take a more radical approach and just begin trying to disrupt normative identities within the school setting. Bosio makes quote a strong case for a values based curriculum which I would agree with and argues that the enhanced popularity of market based values can enhance inequality. Bosio advocates for maintaining a “creative empathy that reaches beyond the immediate context”(Bosio, 2019). In another sense as queering is considered a post structural discipline there is no prescriptive approach, therefore one has more opportunities for creative freedom and to disrupt according to their own perspective. 
 Limits to the practice

There are many barriers to queering the curriculum, beginning with teacher discomfort and also by the simple matter of the strength and pervasiveness of the existing system. We can see the fingerprints of the typical rejection of the infusion of queer content into the curriculum in the writings of people such as Infed. According to Infed problems arise in progressive areas where education drifts or moves into entertainment or containment (Infed 2012). As more and more students express an interest in non-normative identities and fluidity it has become more common to hear that queering is “pandering’ or entertaining ideas that students have. It does not in my opinion sound like a bad idea to make a curriculum that is relevant and engaging to student interests.

Barriers also exist in terms of what is conceptually possible; a truly queer curriculum that embodies the importance of acknowledging positionality and subjectivity could not actually act as a curriculum if we stick to the strictest definition: as going back to Surbhi the curriculum involves a degree of uniformity, “syllabus varies but Curriculum is the same for all teachers” (Surbhi, 2017). Therefore if we take a curriculum to be a uniform document then a queer curriculum (something that rejects uniformity and demands an acknowledgement of subjectivity) can never truly exist. However if we widen the net a little we can find some advocates for a less rigid approach to curriculum as Kotinsky puts it we often become mixed up and discuss curriculum when we mean the transfer of knowledge (“that’s just syllabus and it’s something a lot of teachers do”), furthermore over planning of the curriculum can rob the students of their voice (Nerstrom, 1999).

I was also struck by an interesting observation when reading the forum submissions by the various groups on the topic of “curriculum as linked to theory”. On the topic of the hidden curriculum only one other group mentioned concrete examples of normative values that went beyond surface level issues. I do not mean this as a criticism in any sense however I do think it indicates another limiting factor in the process of queering the curriculum. I sometimes joke that “being a teacher is easy, it’s like riding a bike, except the bike is on fire, you’re on fire, everything is on fire”. What I mean to say is that as teachers we are so occupied by the ins and outs of our own subjects, students, parents and general tasks that training ourselves to recognize and subvert the normative values we are disseminating to students is a colossal and exhausting task that I think most teachers don’t have time for, unless it relates to their own identity.

Figure 2 A Visual Representation of Teaching in the Pandemic

Finally as mentioned in the introduction the development of a queer curriculum is indeed doomed to fail, that does not mean we should not undertake it’s development it just means that the work is relentless and that the status quo will snap back to “normal” as soon as we stop pushing. Ladson, Billings et al lay out a particularly succinct model of how efforts to change the curriculum either fail or are incorporated in ways that “fail to result in real change” (Ladson, Billings et al, 1995 P.167)

Conclusion: In conclusion, the notion of queering the curriculum is a complex topic that requires an enhanced degree of questioning the status quo and what is considered to be “normal”. This can serve as a vehicle to overcome the idea of the curriculum as control, to help students feel as though they belong or to genuinely invest in the student voice and allowing them to drive change within the curriculum. This idea is both an imperative and an opportunity to provide a more diverse curriculum in which we acknowledge the presence of teacher bias and perspective, This model also rejects the idea of tolerance as a helpful tool in queering and advocates for a more radical approach. Queering the curriculum can also be used as a model to develop more critical thinking skills in schools. I can also however acknowledge the difficulties of embodying this model, beginning with parental rejection and enhanced by the strength of the status quo and the idea that this project will indeed fail to enact any meaningful lasting change. 

I will end on a more positive note however and say that I believe the model I have submitted along with this paper can provide the beginnings of a roadmap to enhanced inclusion in the curriculum.

 File:Toolkit working doc.docx.pdf