ERIC Number: EJ1037473
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0954-0253
EISSN: N/A
"You Must Be Thinking What a Lesbian Man Teacher Is Doing in a Nice Place Like Dipane Letsie School?": Enacting, Negotiating and Reproducing Dominant Understandings of Gender in a Rural School in the Free State, South Africa
Francis, Dennis
Gender and Education, v26 n5 p539-552 2014
In this article I explore two questions -- how does, Thatho, a transgendered life orientation teacher enact, resist and reproduce dominant understandings of gender and sexuality in terms of his own identity and practice; and what specific possibilities, challenges and resistances exist for a transgender educator in the rural. Using life-history research, I show that Thatho challenges essentialist assumptions of gender and identity as he enacts multiple masculinities. My article troubles the common typification of men solely as hegemonic, marginalised or subordinate when indeed the actual accounts of their lives are far more fluid than these rigid distinctions. Thatho's enactment of multiple masculinities talks to the "durability or survivability of non-hegemonic patterns of masculinity" outlined by Connell and Messershmidt [2005. "Hegemonic Masculinity Rethinking the Concept." "Gender & Society" 19 (6): 829-859. doi:10.1177/0891243205278639], which in many ways characterises a well-crafted response to his own marginalisation and stigmatised sexuality. Yet, Thatho's narrative also suggests a significant flexibility in the gender order in Qwaqwa, which looks different from the sometimes inflexibility of rural society and in some research from the developed world and, perhaps, from some urban contexts in contemporary South Africa.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Sexual Orientation, Sexual Identity, Social Attitudes, Rural Schools, Masculinity, Teacher Characteristics, Identification (Psychology), Males, Interviews, Personal Narratives, Secondary School Teachers, Sexuality
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A