ERIC Number: EJ1120477
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0882-4843
EISSN: N/A
Queering Institutions?: Sexual Identity in Public Education in a Canadian Context
Shipley, Heather
Feminist Teacher: A Journal of the Practices, Theories, and Scholarship of Feminist Teaching, v23 n3 p196-210 2013
In April 2010, a series of proposed changes to the Ontario sex education curriculum for publicly-funded institutions within the province was announced. Within three days of that announcement, then premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, put a hold on the proposed changes, stating that consideration of the multicultural and religiously diverse needs of the population was required before any changes were to go into effect ("McGuinty"). Since then, the Accepting Schools Act (regarding policies of nondiscrimination in publicly funded schools) has been introduced and hotly debated across the province, and a slightly revised curriculum was implemented in 2010 (to a lesser extent than originally proposed). The author uses the curriculum debate as an entryway to think about whether it is possible to queer public institutions, specifically asking whether we are capable of queering publicly funded education. Although much contemporary identity theory, and queer theory in particular, pushes boundaries of identity conformity and offers nuanced and complex pictures of the ways people live out their gendered and sexual identities, the gap between this cutting-edge research and the lived reality (here for youth) is demonstrated by ongoing negative responses to sexual or gender diversity. The author argues that the consternation sexual and gender diversity elicits when introduced into sex education curriculum is a reflection of the resistance to destabilizing sexual identity within the institution of education.
Descriptors: Public Education, Sexual Identity, Sex Education, Foreign Countries, Educational Legislation, Educational Change, Cultural Pluralism, Religious Cultural Groups, Educational Policy, Federal Aid, Educational Finance, Homosexuality
University of Illinois Press. 1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. Tel: 217-244-0626; Fax: 217-244-8082; e-mail: journals@uillinois.edu; Web site: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals.php
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A