D A Francis
Biographic Data
| ID | 5751 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D A Francis |
| GIVEN NAMES | D A |
| FAMILY NAME | Francis |
| SIGNATURE | FRANCIS D A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stellenbosch University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6353-4120 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 92 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Troubling Cisheteronormativity: Gender, Sexualities and Society
Cisheteronormativity has become an increasingly important focus in global scholarship on gender, sexuality, and power. Responding to this growing focus, the South African Review of Sociology issued
When joy comes your way, you have to grab it!’ Troubling how queer joy features in the lives of LGBT + school‐attending youth in South Africa
Recently, the concept ‘queer joy’ has gained interest in LGBT+ scholarship in the West. I use this scholarship as an entry point to explore how school‐attending LGBT+ youth express joy and how joy serves as a form of resistance against gender and sexuality norms in educational settings. While I prioritise a focus on joy, I do not overlook the existing South African research on the adverse experiences of LGBT+ youth but explore how LGBT+ youth tal…
Nae problem here”: Troubling race and racism in Scottish education
Cleansing and Building in Rastafari Healing in London: Health Sovereignty for a Hostile Environment
Health sovereignty - the assertion of rights to culturally and ecologically appropriate medicines and the ability of communities to structure their own healthcare - is a biopolitical goal of the Rastafari movement. We examine how health sovereignty is enacted by Rastafari herbalists in south London and the contributions these healers make to health in the UK, particularly for migrants disenfranchised by "hostile environment" immigration policies.…
“You gotta pull yourself towards yourself.” A sociological analysis of how Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) school attending youth, school managers and teachers understand and respond to transphob…
This paper explores how transphobia is understood and responded to in South African schools. Drawing on qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews with teachers, school managers, and TGD school-attending youth, the findings show that while there are minimal efforts to respond to and dismantle transphobia, school managers and teachers increasingly reproduce cisnormativity instrumentalising TGD youth to either assimilate or change. The anal…
Normalising intolerance: The efforts of Christian Right groups to block LGBTIQ+ inclusion in South African schools
Post-apartheid, South Africa has come a long way in making the inclusion of gender and sexuality equality explicit in its Constitution. To make schools more inclusive for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) identifying learners, the Department of Basic Education has developed what it claims are South Africa's first guidelines regarding sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). Despite the…
I haven’t gotten my head around that.’: Cisheterosexual school-attending youths’ accounts of how cisheteronormativity features in their sexuality education curriculum.‘
Comprehensive Sexuality Education is vital in educating youth about gender and sexuality diversity, and yet there has been a growing debate about including LGBTIQ+ content. Using focus group interviews with 11 cisheterosexual school-attending youth in Cape Town, South Africa, this article considers their accounts of whether and how cisheteronormativity features in their sexuality education curriculum. The participants’ responses are a mixed bag, …
Queer and trans activism in South African schools: Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) disrupting LGBT+ inequalities
This paper challenges the idea that schools can sufficiently address LGBT+ inequalities and makes a case for schools to forge alliances with non-governmental actors who provide advocacy and support. It draws on in-depth interviews with educational staff and NGO queer and trans activists to explore their agendas in responding to cisheteronormativity in schools. The paper argues that teachers and NGO interactions are underpinned by an ambivalent lo…
‘A square peg in a round hole’. Transgender and gender diverse youth and schooling in South Africa
There is a continuing thread of research evidence that schools acknowledge just two self-evident genders and that trans and gender diverse (TGD) youth face significant marginalisation and exclusion. Drawing on a qualitative study of educational staff and seven TGD school-attending youth in South Africa, this paper explores two lines of inquiry – how schools as cultural and social spaces produce and resist cisnormativity and how TGD school-attendi…
A Gay Agenda”: Troubling Compulsory Heterosexuality in a South African University Classroom
Not only does teaching about gender and sexuality diversity lead to some very interesting and often emotionally evocative, pedagogical exchanges; it can also create challenging issues for teachers and students alike. This article focuses on what happens when a module that addresses compulsory heterosexuality and schooling is broached in an undergraduate sociology class. More importantly, it offers an analysis of the critical incidents and tension…
Queering the (Ab)Normalization of Gender, (Hetero)Sexuality and Schooling in South Africa
Schools are places where youth do work on the construction of their sexual identities which is intimately connected with issues around gender. Using one-on-one in-depth interviews, this article addresses how queer youth navigate dominant understandings of gender and sexuality in the context of their identity and practice. Cognizant of how gender remains a significant force in organizing social relations in schools, the youth parody and abnormaliz…
Imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality in South African education
There is a critical need for sex, sexuality and relationships education to be LGBTQI inclusive. Numerous studies, internationally and in South Africa, highlight this need but what constitutes an inclusive curriculum has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper seeks to advance this conversation by imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality and considers what knowledges and practices are necessary for the South African context. To…
I Get Fire Inside Me That Tells Me I’m Going to Defy.”: The Discursive Construction of Trans Masculinity in Cape Town, South Africa
This research extends our understanding of trans masculinity in South Africa. Drawing on in-depth interviews with seven trans masculine-identified individuals, we analyze the discourses that trans masculine individuals draw on to make sense of their experiences of gender and their embodiment and performance of masculinity. There are three key findings. First, we found that trans masculine people deploy competing discourses of gender to make sense…
Troubling the discourse of the victimization of queer youth in Icelandic and South African education
The homophobia and hostility experienced by queer learners in Icelandic and South African schools are well documented. Drawing on in-depth interviews with queer youth (16–19 years) in Iceland and South Africa, this paper aims at understanding how queer youth navigate heterosexist and homophobic school spaces and create some positive spaces. The findings highlight that queer youth employ various social and discursive strategies to (re)position the…
What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities
Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclus…
Oh my word; for us African gays it’s another story.’ revealing the intersections between race, same sex-sexuality and schooling in South Africa
In South Africa, the connection between race and sexuality cannot be ignored nor can the link between racism and heterosexism. Arguing that race is a significant aspect of sexual citizenship in South Africa, this article explores the relationship between sexuality, race, and schooling of queer youth and the priorities this relationship holds for schooling. Using in-depth interviews with same-sex attracted school-attending youth, this paper makes …
Keeping it straight’ what do South African queer youth say they need from sexuality education
Drawing on Rich’s [Rich, A. 2004. “Reflections on ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality.’.” Journal of Women's History 16: 9–11; Rich, A. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 631–660] conceptualization of heterosexuality as an institutionalized and compulsory system that supports gender and sexuality inequality, this paper answers the following questions – how do queer youth take up, qu…
Homophobia and sexuality diversity in South African schools: A review
Post-apartheid, there has been an increase in research on issues of gender and sexuality diversity in South African schools. To build upon and advance gender and sexuality diversity studies, I conducted a review of the literature that addresses how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth experience schooling and how schools, if at all, respond to gender and sexuality diversity. Of the 27 publications reviewed, the findings show how s…
I think we had one or two of those, but they weren't really”: Teacher and Learner Talk on Bisexuality in South African Schools
The present study answers the following questions: How does bisexuality feature in teacher and learner talk on gender and sexuality diversity and what priorities, if any, does an analysis of such t
To correct, punish and praise’ LRC leaders experiences and expressions of non-heterosexuality in Namibian schools
Learner representative councils (LRCs) have been constituted to foster democratic participation and citizenry in Namibian schools. Drawing on a larger UNESCO project that focused on gender violence and schooling, we report on focus group interviews with LRC members in schools in Windhoek. Working with how heterosexuality is normalised and constituted as dominant in schools, we explore how LRCs in Namibian schools respond to and confront non-heter…
Relationships, intimacy and desire in the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in South Africa
This article answers the following questions: how do nine lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people in South Africa understand and talk about relationships, intimacy, and desire; what does this understanding and talk tell us about gender and sexuality in South Africa; and how useful is the metaphor of the ‘closet’ to understand how LGB youth talk about relationships, intimacy and desire? At the time of the study, they were between 16 and 19 ye…
You need to have some guts to teach: Teacher preparation and characteristics for the teaching of sexuality and HIV/Aids education in South African schools
Using in-depth interviews, we asked sexuality educators in South Africa about their own professional preparation and what they believed were necessary educator characteristics for teaching Sexuality Education. Our findings show that our teachers taught Sexuality Education without any appropriate qualification or preparation, but because they had a lighter teaching load and had room to take on more teaching hours. Nevertheless, they all mention th…
Teacher perspectives on abstinence and safe sex education in South Africa
The stakes are high for sex education in South Africa: it has been estimated that 8.7% of young people live with HIV. Within primarily US and UK contexts, there has been much debate over the relative merits of abstinence-only and comprehensive sexual education programmes. These perspectives have largely been presented as irreconcilable, but in-depth interviews with 25 life orientation teachers across the Free State Province of South Africa reveal…
Silence, nostalgia, violence, poverty: What does ‘culture’ mean for South African sexuality educators
In in-depth interviews with 25 Life Orientation teachers in South Africa, we found that teachers spontaneously drew upon notions of culture to explain and justify people's sexual beliefs and behaviours and their own role as educators. Drawing upon a Bakhtinian understanding of discourse, we apply critical semantic analysis to explore how culture is deployed as a discursive strategy. Teachers draw upon particular understandings of culture availabl…
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 F…
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 mul…
Teaching About Heterosexism: Challenging Homophobia in South Africa
This article, a critical review of a module on heterosexism and homophobia, sets out the challenges to be overcome if the oppressive conditions for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students and teachers in South Africa are to be changed. It draws on evidence from student assignments, records of participatory discussions and the notes of the authors, who taught the module. The authors argue that the participatory methods used in this course are essentia…
Sexuality education in South Africa: Three essential questions
South African Life Orientation Teachers: (Not) Teaching About Sexuality Diversity
Although South Africa is one of the most progressive countries in the world in terms of constitutional and legislative rights for LGBT individuals, education is one of many social arenas where these ideals are not carried out. Interviews with 25 practicing teachers revealed very little description of practice, but widely divergent understandings around sexual diversity that drew on various authoritative discourses, including religious teachings, …
Queering the (Ab)Normalization of Gender, (Hetero)Sexuality and Schooling in South Africa
Schools are places where youth do work on the construction of their sexual identities which is intimately connected with issues around gender. Using one-on-one in-depth interviews, this article addresses how queer youth navigate dominant understandings of gender and sexuality in the context of their identity and practice. Cognizant of how gender remains a significant force in organizing social relations in schools, the youth parody and abnormaliz…
Oh my word; for us African gays it’s another story.’ revealing the intersections between race, same sex-sexuality and schooling in South Africa
In South Africa, the connection between race and sexuality cannot be ignored nor can the link between racism and heterosexism. Arguing that race is a significant aspect of sexual citizenship in South Africa, this article explores the relationship between sexuality, race, and schooling of queer youth and the priorities this relationship holds for schooling. Using in-depth interviews with same-sex attracted school-attending youth, this paper makes …
Keeping it straight’ what do South African queer youth say they need from sexuality education
Drawing on Rich’s [Rich, A. 2004. “Reflections on ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality.’.” Journal of Women's History 16: 9–11; Rich, A. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 631–660] conceptualization of heterosexuality as an institutionalized and compulsory system that supports gender and sexuality inequality, this paper answers the following questions – how do queer youth take up, qu…
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 F…
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 mul…
Imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality in South African education
There is a critical need for sex, sexuality and relationships education to be LGBTQI inclusive. Numerous studies, internationally and in South Africa, highlight this need but what constitutes an inclusive curriculum has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper seeks to advance this conversation by imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality and considers what knowledges and practices are necessary for the South African context. To…
Troubling the discourse of the victimization of queer youth in Icelandic and South African education
The homophobia and hostility experienced by queer learners in Icelandic and South African schools are well documented. Drawing on in-depth interviews with queer youth (16–19 years) in Iceland and South Africa, this paper aims at understanding how queer youth navigate heterosexist and homophobic school spaces and create some positive spaces. The findings highlight that queer youth employ various social and discursive strategies to (re)position the…
I think we had one or two of those, but they weren't really”: Teacher and Learner Talk on Bisexuality in South African Schools
The present study answers the following questions: How does bisexuality feature in teacher and learner talk on gender and sexuality diversity and what priorities, if any, does an analysis of such t
You need to have some guts to teach: Teacher preparation and characteristics for the teaching of sexuality and HIV/Aids education in South African schools
Using in-depth interviews, we asked sexuality educators in South Africa about their own professional preparation and what they believed were necessary educator characteristics for teaching Sexuality Education. Our findings show that our teachers taught Sexuality Education without any appropriate qualification or preparation, but because they had a lighter teaching load and had room to take on more teaching hours. Nevertheless, they all mention th…
To correct, punish and praise’ LRC leaders experiences and expressions of non-heterosexuality in Namibian schools
Learner representative councils (LRCs) have been constituted to foster democratic participation and citizenry in Namibian schools. Drawing on a larger UNESCO project that focused on gender violence and schooling, we report on focus group interviews with LRC members in schools in Windhoek. Working with how heterosexuality is normalised and constituted as dominant in schools, we explore how LRCs in Namibian schools respond to and confront non-heter…
Sex is not something we talk about, it's something we do’: Using drama to engage youth in sexuality, relationship and HIV education
The purpose of this article is to examine how drama, in the Boal tradition, was used for communication about HIV at a school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Working with the assumption that youth participation and agency are key to halting the rising infection rates in young people, I show that drama that is participant-centred provides an opportunity for participants to express their own feelings and opinions, in a way that is not possible in tr…
I haven’t gotten my head around that.’: Cisheterosexual school-attending youths’ accounts of how cisheteronormativity features in their sexuality education curriculum.‘
Comprehensive Sexuality Education is vital in educating youth about gender and sexuality diversity, and yet there has been a growing debate about including LGBTIQ+ content. Using focus group interviews with 11 cisheterosexual school-attending youth in Cape Town, South Africa, this article considers their accounts of whether and how cisheteronormativity features in their sexuality education curriculum. The participants’ responses are a mixed bag, …
Queer and trans activism in South African schools: Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) disrupting LGBT+ inequalities
This paper challenges the idea that schools can sufficiently address LGBT+ inequalities and makes a case for schools to forge alliances with non-governmental actors who provide advocacy and support. It draws on in-depth interviews with educational staff and NGO queer and trans activists to explore their agendas in responding to cisheteronormativity in schools. The paper argues that teachers and NGO interactions are underpinned by an ambivalent lo…
A Gay Agenda”: Troubling Compulsory Heterosexuality in a South African University Classroom
Not only does teaching about gender and sexuality diversity lead to some very interesting and often emotionally evocative, pedagogical exchanges; it can also create challenging issues for teachers and students alike. This article focuses on what happens when a module that addresses compulsory heterosexuality and schooling is broached in an undergraduate sociology class. More importantly, it offers an analysis of the critical incidents and tension…
I Get Fire Inside Me That Tells Me I’m Going to Defy.”: The Discursive Construction of Trans Masculinity in Cape Town, South Africa
This research extends our understanding of trans masculinity in South Africa. Drawing on in-depth interviews with seven trans masculine-identified individuals, we analyze the discourses that trans masculine individuals draw on to make sense of their experiences of gender and their embodiment and performance of masculinity. There are three key findings. First, we found that trans masculine people deploy competing discourses of gender to make sense…
Between the Cracks: Out-of-School Youth and Discourses of HIV/Aids
Out-of-school youth are particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS due to factors of poverty, lack of employment opportunities, low self-esteem and entrenched notions of gender. Many HIV/AIDS information campaigns are run through schools and, even though high profile prevention campaigns are broadcast through the media, out-of-school youth are beyond the reach of a structured learning environment in which they can discuss and ask questions regarding the…
Some Features of 'Invited Stories' About Marriage Breakdown
Some Features of 'Invited Stories' About Marriage Breakdown
Youth have a new attitude on Aids, but are they talking about it
In advocating HIV prevention, organisations such as loveLife in South Africa have increasingly used the media to encourage communication and influence behaviour change in youth. Our study examined youths' understanding and communication habits surrounding loveLife's extensive 'Get Attitude' print campaign. Intrigued by the ambiguous campaign message, we implemented a questionnaire-based study in three urban KwaZulu-Natal schools to investigate ho…
My man says as long as we are faithful we will be fine’: Gendered discourses of out-of-school youth in a context of HIV and Aids
Out-of-school youth exist in a marginal, and often academically ignored, world that is bounded by poverty, gender and HIV and AIDS. This article explores those boundaries and the way out-of-school youth talk about the space between them as well as their sense-making of it. In order to access this hard-to-reach group and attempt to break down the boundaries between trained and untrained, researcher and researched, eight out-of-school youths were t…
Between the Cracks: Out-of-School Youth and Discourses of HIV/Aids
Out-of-school youth are particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS due to factors of poverty, lack of employment opportunities, low self-esteem and entrenched notions of gender. Many HIV/AIDS information campaigns are run through schools and, even though high profile prevention campaigns are broadcast through the media, out-of-school youth are beyond the reach of a structured learning environment in which they can discuss and ask questions regarding the…
Youth as research fieldworkers in a context of HIV/Aids
What are the strengths and limitations of using out-of-school youths as researchers in a study of the relationships among young people of the same group? While youth-to-youth research approaches have increased in both popularity and practice, our understanding of the processes and mechanisms underlying the successes or failures of 'peer researchers' is still developing. The study addresses the question through qualitative research, drawing on obs…
Sexuality education in South Africa: Three essential questions
Sex is not something we talk about, it's something we do’: Using drama to engage youth in sexuality, relationship and HIV education
The purpose of this article is to examine how drama, in the Boal tradition, was used for communication about HIV at a school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Working with the assumption that youth participation and agency are key to halting the rising infection rates in young people, I show that drama that is participant-centred provides an opportunity for participants to express their own feelings and opinions, in a way that is not possible in tr…
Sexuality Education in South Africa: Wedged within a Triad of Contradictory Values
Few studies have investigated how teachers teach sexuality within the Outcomes-Based Life Orientation programme. This desktop review investigates sex and sexuality teaching practices in the classroom. First it gives a brief overview of the curriculum requirements for sexuality education. Secondly, it focuses on teachers and their capacity for teaching in this area, in particular the conflict between existing values and those needed. Thirdly, it a…
Teaching About Heterosexism: Challenging Homophobia in South Africa
This article, a critical review of a module on heterosexism and homophobia, sets out the challenges to be overcome if the oppressive conditions for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students and teachers in South Africa are to be changed. It draws on evidence from student assignments, records of participatory discussions and the notes of the authors, who taught the module. The authors argue that the participatory methods used in this course are essentia…
Teacher positioning on the teaching of sexual diversity in South African schools
This paper reports on research with 11 high school teachers in Durban and draws on positioning theory to raise important questions on the teaching of issues relating to homosexuality and bisexuality within sexuality education. Using data collected from classroom observations and in-depth interviews, it demonstrates that issues related to sexual diversity were in most cases ignored or avoided by teachers and when teachers did include aspects of ho…
Teacher perspectives on abstinence and safe sex education in South Africa
The stakes are high for sex education in South Africa: it has been estimated that 8.7% of young people live with HIV. Within primarily US and UK contexts, there has been much debate over the relative merits of abstinence-only and comprehensive sexual education programmes. These perspectives have largely been presented as irreconcilable, but in-depth interviews with 25 life orientation teachers across the Free State Province of South Africa reveal…
Silence, nostalgia, violence, poverty: What does ‘culture’ mean for South African sexuality educators
In in-depth interviews with 25 Life Orientation teachers in South Africa, we found that teachers spontaneously drew upon notions of culture to explain and justify people's sexual beliefs and behaviours and their own role as educators. Drawing upon a Bakhtinian understanding of discourse, we apply critical semantic analysis to explore how culture is deployed as a discursive strategy. Teachers draw upon particular understandings of culture availabl…
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 F…
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 mul…
South African Life Orientation Teachers: (Not) Teaching About Sexuality Diversity
Although South Africa is one of the most progressive countries in the world in terms of constitutional and legislative rights for LGBT individuals, education is one of many social arenas where these ideals are not carried out. Interviews with 25 practicing teachers revealed very little description of practice, but widely divergent understandings around sexual diversity that drew on various authoritative discourses, including religious teachings, …
You need to have some guts to teach: Teacher preparation and characteristics for the teaching of sexuality and HIV/Aids education in South African schools
Using in-depth interviews, we asked sexuality educators in South Africa about their own professional preparation and what they believed were necessary educator characteristics for teaching Sexuality Education. Our findings show that our teachers taught Sexuality Education without any appropriate qualification or preparation, but because they had a lighter teaching load and had room to take on more teaching hours. Nevertheless, they all mention th…
Relationships, intimacy and desire in the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in South Africa
This article answers the following questions: how do nine lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people in South Africa understand and talk about relationships, intimacy, and desire; what does this understanding and talk tell us about gender and sexuality in South Africa; and how useful is the metaphor of the ‘closet’ to understand how LGB youth talk about relationships, intimacy and desire? At the time of the study, they were between 16 and 19 ye…
Homophobia and sexuality diversity in South African schools: A review
Post-apartheid, there has been an increase in research on issues of gender and sexuality diversity in South African schools. To build upon and advance gender and sexuality diversity studies, I conducted a review of the literature that addresses how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth experience schooling and how schools, if at all, respond to gender and sexuality diversity. Of the 27 publications reviewed, the findings show how s…
I think we had one or two of those, but they weren't really”: Teacher and Learner Talk on Bisexuality in South African Schools
The present study answers the following questions: How does bisexuality feature in teacher and learner talk on gender and sexuality diversity and what priorities, if any, does an analysis of such t
To correct, punish and praise’ LRC leaders experiences and expressions of non-heterosexuality in Namibian schools
Learner representative councils (LRCs) have been constituted to foster democratic participation and citizenry in Namibian schools. Drawing on a larger UNESCO project that focused on gender violence and schooling, we report on focus group interviews with LRC members in schools in Windhoek. Working with how heterosexuality is normalised and constituted as dominant in schools, we explore how LRCs in Namibian schools respond to and confront non-heter…
Keeping it straight’ what do South African queer youth say they need from sexuality education
Drawing on Rich’s [Rich, A. 2004. “Reflections on ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality.’.” Journal of Women's History 16: 9–11; Rich, A. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 631–660] conceptualization of heterosexuality as an institutionalized and compulsory system that supports gender and sexuality inequality, this paper answers the following questions – how do queer youth take up, qu…
What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities
Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclus…
Oh my word; for us African gays it’s another story.’ revealing the intersections between race, same sex-sexuality and schooling in South Africa
In South Africa, the connection between race and sexuality cannot be ignored nor can the link between racism and heterosexism. Arguing that race is a significant aspect of sexual citizenship in South Africa, this article explores the relationship between sexuality, race, and schooling of queer youth and the priorities this relationship holds for schooling. Using in-depth interviews with same-sex attracted school-attending youth, this paper makes …
Imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality in South African education
There is a critical need for sex, sexuality and relationships education to be LGBTQI inclusive. Numerous studies, internationally and in South Africa, highlight this need but what constitutes an inclusive curriculum has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper seeks to advance this conversation by imagining a curriculum beyond compulsory heterosexuality and considers what knowledges and practices are necessary for the South African context. To…
I Get Fire Inside Me That Tells Me I’m Going to Defy.”: The Discursive Construction of Trans Masculinity in Cape Town, South Africa
This research extends our understanding of trans masculinity in South Africa. Drawing on in-depth interviews with seven trans masculine-identified individuals, we analyze the discourses that trans masculine individuals draw on to make sense of their experiences of gender and their embodiment and performance of masculinity. There are three key findings. First, we found that trans masculine people deploy competing discourses of gender to make sense…
Troubling the discourse of the victimization of queer youth in Icelandic and South African education
The homophobia and hostility experienced by queer learners in Icelandic and South African schools are well documented. Drawing on in-depth interviews with queer youth (16–19 years) in Iceland and South Africa, this paper aims at understanding how queer youth navigate heterosexist and homophobic school spaces and create some positive spaces. The findings highlight that queer youth employ various social and discursive strategies to (re)position the…
Sociology (34 works) · Gender Studies (31 works) · Human sexuality (22 works) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (22 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Political science (21 works) · Gender Studies (20 works) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues (19 works) · Pedagogy (19 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (18 works)