Despite longstanding calls for social justice-oriented teaching, there remains limited understanding of how to achieve it. This paper reports findings from a research-development project that explored the experiences of UK-based primary science teacher educators participating in a nine-month equity-oriented professional development programme and…

This paper examines the role of professionalism in teachers' change in practice related to dialogue and argumentation. Data were collected from 14 pre-primary and primary school teachers who participated in a professional development programme with an emphasis on promoting values such as tolerance, empathy, inclusion and social responsibility…

Physical Education is widespread across the world, yet despite its cultural variation it remains remarkably similar. The ability of the subject to replicate its practices makes it a potential site for exploration from a memetic perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine documentary evidence such as research papers, policy documents and…

From 2006 to 2008 UK-based primary school teachers in the "No Outsiders" project explored possibilities for addressing sexualities equality in their classrooms. What all teachers had in common was a resource pack that included 27 children's books exploring themes of gender and sexuality diversity either directly or indirectly (i.e. by…

Most people, school teachers and children included, are altogether too sure about what gender is: there are two "opposite" sexes, man and woman, and gender is the inevitable categorical expression of natural sex. Like all commonsense views, however, the gender binary has been socially constructed through normalising discourses that frame…

The English Geography National Curriculum encourages primary teachers to focus on similarities and differences when teaching distant places. The issues this raises are particularly acute when teaching geography in the context of the Global South. In this article I argue that comparisons based on object-based thinking can lead to views of the…

"Interrogating Heteronormativity in Primary Schools: The No Outsiders Project" is a book that reflects on a research project based in primary schools and funded by The Economic and Social Research Council of the UK. This text is accompanied by another practice-focused work: "Undoing Homophobia in Primary Schools". The project…

This article offers a reading of the 2006 film "The History Boys", which depicts eight male working-class grammar school students preparing for exams to enter Oxford and Cambridge and two teachers who prepare them. I read the film's subjunctive mood, which gestures to possibility and an "otherwise", as connected to an analytic…

The paper is based on a research project that sought to understand schools' behaviour management strategies from the perspective of students who had the most experience of them. It focuses on the contrasting ways in which teacher and student subjectivities are framed and positioned within the discourse. It considers how student accounts were…

This article outlines the findings of a new study that explores the portrayal of disability within a sample of the primary-age children's literature most readily available to UK schools. The kind of literature to which children are exposed is likely to influence their general perceptions of social life. How disability is handled by authors is…

This article presents some of the advances in legal support for addressing homophobia and transphobia in school settings and provides a critique of school-based policies that focus on these phenomena as particular incidents involving bullies and victims. Defining heteronormativity as a cultural phenomenon underpinning recognisable acts of…

Research concerning children is often presented with only a brief comment on the research methods adopted. This paper takes a "behind the scenes" view and I discuss my adoption of a non-hierarchical "least adult role" adapted from Mandell's work in 1991 to undertake qualitative research in the sensitive area of children's…

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…

This article provides a critical account of a selection of approaches that were used in the 26-month No Outsiders participatory action research project in education settings. The paper questions what challenges are presented to educators in critically exploring and challenging heteronormative sex-gender discourses. We revisit some of the tensions…

For several years now a number of countries have been attempting to increase their numbers of male primary teachers, yet have met with little success. Feminists/pro-feminists have challenged the intentions of these male teacher recruitment drives but failed to offer any interventions that might contribute to a broadening of the primary teacher…