Introductions/Orientations: Queer Pedagogies, Social Foundations, and Praxis

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the lack of exposure in preservice teacher preparation courses to critical dialogues particularly around queer theories and education. There’s a need to deepen awareness and sharpen public responsibility in curriculum design and teaching, specifically through queer theories and pedagogy and focusing on queering identity and knowledge, regarding race/ethnicity, gender, class/culture, sexuality, exceptionalities, epistemology, and teaching/teacher-prep/schooling. Teacher preparation in general functions to produce and preserve heteronormative structures. In discussing how queer theories might reframe courses, topics, and projects, new possibilities arise for interrogating and deconstructing normative structures and curricula. The hope is to help prospective teachers question the perseverance of defining “good” teaching only through mastery of best practices in skills/methods, content, and classroom management. Often these skill sets dehumanize the prospective teacher and student, leaving them deskilled and ill-equipped to deal with sociocultural political issues in the classroom and ways to prepare students for active citizenry. Students should have ample space to develop a critical consciousness and activist disposition as they prepare to be educators. Students can discover a wealth of pedagogical tools within queer pedagogies and theories to produce a deeper sense of respect and acceptance for all levels and degrees of difference in their classrooms.