Search results

English teacher candidates have limited opportunities to examine classroom-based discussions about LGBTQ-themed texts and heteronormativity in teacher education courses. This chapter presents one effort to address this issue using a video-based field experience in the English Methods course that demonstrated a critical unit of instruction about the play, Angels in America. The chapter provides a description of the project and English teacher candidates’ perspectives about what they learned for English educators interested in devising similar projects for their courses.

Since the 1950s, the closet has been the chief metaphor for conceptualizing the experience of sexual minorities. Social change over the last four decades has begun to dismantle some of the social structures that historically policed heteronormativity and forced queer people to manage information about their sexuality in everyday life. Although scholars argue that these changes make it possible for some sexual minorities to live “beyond the closet” (Seidman, 2002), evidence shows the dynamics of the closet persist in organizations. Drawing on a case study of theme park entertainment workers, whose jobs exist at the nexus of structural conditions that research anticipates would end heterosexual domination, I find that what initially appears to be a post-closeted workplace is, in fact, a new iteration: the walk-in closet. More expansive than the corporate or gay-friendly closets, the walk-in closet provides some sexual minorities with a space to disclose their identities, seemingly without cost. Yet the fundamental dynamics of the closet – the subordination of homosexuality to heterosexuality and the continued need for LGB workers to manage information about their sexuality at work – persist through a set of boundaries that contain gayness to organizationally desired places.

Purpose – This chapter examines the roles of the Unification Church (UC) in reconstructing the discourse of the gendered desire of Filipina marriage migrants and their Korean husbands, serving as an intermediary agency in the process of international marriage migration, and reinforcing heterosexual practices as part of a regime of normalization.

Methodology – The chapter is based on 1 year of ethnographic fieldwork that included a review of secondary sources, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with Filipinas and Korean men.

Findings – The chapter shows the ways in which the UC reinforces the dominant discourse of gendered desire that portrays marriage migrants as women who wish to migrate mainly to marry a man who can provide economic stability. Filipina migrants, however, infuse the cultural discourse of romantic love into their decisions about husbands and marriage migration. Lastly, as the UC delineates normative heterosexual practices based on its religious doctrines, the church becomes a “regime of normalization” for traditional patriarchal heteronormativity.

Social implications – The chapter contributes to the idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and constitutive of migration.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter examines not only the matchmaking role of an intermediary agency that facilitates cross-border marriages but also the agency's role in re/constructing gendered desire. Further, the chapter contributes to an understudied area: the social process of reconstructing heteronormativity in a transnational context.

In this paper, I look at one of the most archetypal of children’s stories, that of Noah and the flood, to understand the classificatory schema it presents.

Drawing on an analysis of 47 children’s picture books based on the biblical story, including those held in the historical archive of the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton, I show that the single most consistent frame for the story is the trope of “two by two”, referencing both the animals and people in the story. The books in the sample, intended for children aged 4–10 years, were published between 1905 and 2006, and are between 14 and 60 pages long.

The repeated emphasis on mated pairs, one male and one female, serves to reproduce the twinned categories of gender and heterosexuality in an overtly “natural” fashion that ties the animal bodies to human social divisions. These constitutive categories of social division – gender and heterosexuality – then become central schemas for organizing people and experience. I draw on Martin (2000) arguing that children encounter picture books before they have had experience in actual social life. Therefore, the books help instill these primary categorization schemas in children, creating the social groupings and relations among them that order their worlds.

The argument makes a strongly causal role for culture and argues that the impact/importance of the content of children’s books may be subordinate to the role they play in helping establish classificatory schema that help construct children’s understandings of the social world.

The purpose of this paper is to build upon the paucity of UK research on gay men and how they manage their identities, bodies and selves in the workplace. Particular focus is placed on gay male professionals working in positions of authority and how they make sense of themselves against the dominant expectations of professionalism.

The study draws upon in-depth interview data with eight gay male professionals working in positions of authority.

Overall, the research reveals that although the majority of participants had disclosed their sexuality in the workplace, they actively sought to integrate and normalise their gay identities. Gendered organisational norms significantly impacted upon the ways they presented their identities, bodies and selves. This was brought into focus where participants had to exercise authority. There were limited opportunities to present non-normative forms of masculinity.

This paper adds to a dearth of studies on gay men, professionalism and managing their bodies, selves and identities in the workplace. The paper builds upon and contributes to our understanding of how gay men use and construct their bodies and their self-identities as professionals. An area that has had little empirical investigation. Furthermore, the paper contributes to our understanding of organisational heteronormativity and professionalism in the workplace. The paper draws attention to issues of diversity and inclusion challenging heteronormative discourses of professionalism which are draped in masculinity. This paper highlights how professionalism serves as a normalising process that pressurises gay men to perform a specific type of masculinity. The paper argues for a more inclusive reappraisal of the meanings attached to the term professionalism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which butch lesbians manage and negotiate their sexual identity in the workplace.

A qualitative study using online ethnographical enquiry to explore lesbians' experiences of performing butch identity in the workplace. Ethical and other issues relating to online ethnographic research are also explored and discussed.

Identity negotiation is a key issue and lesbians face the constant pressure of identity management. This is not simply a personal perspective but a defence mechanism to counter the heteronormative culture within organisations. Strategies for dealing with these tensions evident in the literature and reflected in this study range from “passing” (passing as a heterosexual) to defying expectations of heteronormativity and remaining constant to individual butch identity.

The paper can assist HRD professionals and leaders in developing organisation cultures which embrace and include difference and help obviate oppression. It may also be of interest to researchers and policy makers in the fields of diversity and equality and LGB issues.

The findings here will be of interest to social audiences including LGBT individuals, activist groups and support groups. Wider understanding of female masculinity and butch identity may help leverage greater tolerance and acceptance.

This study responds to calls for more LGBT research in the workplace and organisational context. The findings develop the understanding of identity negotiation in conditions of heteronormativity. It is also argued that this study of the experiences of lesbians in the workplace is positioned as an alternative site of understanding organisations, with learning to offer gendered leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine LGBT exclusion from sporting institutions, examining this as a phenomenon which takes place in specific spaces within these institutions.

A conceptual framework is developed which highlights the differences between initiatives to change heteronormative cultures at institutional levels and the levels of individual sporting spaces. This is applied to examples of heteronormative behaviour in sporting spaces and to diversity initiatives to promote LGBT participation in sport.

The paper argues that change initiatives are only effective if they engage with individual spaces within sports institutions rather than at a blanket institutional level.

The paper outlines links between similar findings in management and organisation literature and findings about sports organisations in the sports sociology literature. It outlines the role of institutions in both promoting LGBT inclusion in sport, but also in drawing LGBT participation towards mainstream heteronormative behaviours.

The goal of this chapter is to address the importance of helping teachers develop an understanding of LGBTQ+ issues and ways to create inclusive classrooms for LGBTQ+ students with particular attention to how LGBTQ+ identities/experiences can be valued and visible through literary and literacy practices. The issues addressed in this chapter are grounded in queer theory and intersectionality, which provide a space for challenging heteronormative environments in many schools as well as acknowledging the complex intersectionality of diverse identities. This framework is unpacked so readers can see how it supports instructional practices. Theory and literature inform discussion of the move in the literacy profession toward LGBTQ+ -inclusive mindsets and pedagogies. They further inform practical implications and examples provided by the author. A major issue of our time is LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools and the role of teachers in implementing literacy practices that address the needs of LGBTQ+ students and making visible their diverse identities. For the field of literacy, this is evidenced in the revision of Standard 4 Diversity and Equity in the International Literacy Association’s (ILA) Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 (Standards 2017). ILA Standards 2017, which will be released in 2018, require programs preparing literacy professionals to develop candidates’ knowledge of queer theory and literacy practices inclusive of diverse students, with diversity including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Further, ILA Standards 2017 acknowledge intersectionality across forms of diversity and that a rich understanding of diversity improves the quality of teaching and learning within and across classrooms, schools, and communities. This chapter expands on these topics and offers foundational content and resources to help literacy teacher educators, candidates in literacy programs, and other stakeholders to answer this call for building a literacy field that is welcoming, inclusive, and equity-oriented. Developing the knowledge base about LGBTQ+ issues, including theoretical foundations, social justice teaching mindsets, and concrete pedagogical literacy practices that build inclusive classrooms, can be an accessible, meaningful, and fruitful endeavor that will enrich literacy education programs and the learning communities in which literacy professionals work. Teacher educators and teachers can utilize book choices, approaches to classroom discussion and assignments, and school initiatives to build a learning environment that values LGBTQ+ students’ identities and experiences and disrupts heteronormativity in the curriculum. Multiple examples of how this can be done are offered. Understanding intersectionality also helps teacher educators and teachers see how forms of diversity are not silos. Individuals’ identities are comprised of various aspects. The topics discussed in this chapter center on LGBTQ+ issues but are applicable beyond just this scope.

Critical management studies (CMS) has been criticised on a number of fronts, not the least of them being its poor track record of reflecting and challenging its internal mechanisms of hierarchy and exclusion. Acknowledging these issues, this chapter explores the role queer theory can play in developing a queer friendship with CMS, whereby CMS might be able to reflect on its normalising tendencies. This chapter does not claim that queer theory is a silver bullet which can deliver itself or otherwise work miracles for solving the complex problems that beset CMS. Rather, it seeks to fan the queer embers that already exist within CMS to spark queerer futures. Part of this endeavour involves bringing CMS and queer theory closer together, but not so close that the two become comfortable companions. As this chapter suggests, a queer friendship will involve antagonisms and tensions between queer and CMS help each other to refute the normative at every turn and gesture towards something more: queerness. Pursuing this project, this chapter provides a brief review of queer theory before outlining current queer stirrings within CMS. The remainder of the chapter focuses on what we might hope to happen from CMS and queer theory being yoked together in a queer friendship, such as bringing queers to the fore in business schools, queering management conferences and embracing forms of queer negativity that condition more radical conceptions of the future.

In this chapter, I use a critical sociological lens to look at ways sport organisations and scholars could think about and practice gender equity in institutional contexts in the United Kingdom. Sport clubs or organisations shape the participation of those involved in the sport and those working in and for these organisations as volunteer, coach, manager, referee, director, board member, etc. Differences in organisational forms and settings inform ways sport organisations think about sport, gender, race, abilities, sexuality and class relations. These ways of thinking may enhance and/or resist the use of sport equitable practices. Organisations are constructions, however, and not fixed objects but always in flux and becoming. In this chapter, I use a critical/queer perspective to make visible and question organisational processes that may contribute to the exclusion of women and minorities in sport governance. I specifically focus on the normative embodiment of leadership, dominant heteronormative practices and diversity as an organisational value. I suggest several ways in which attention to these processes could be part of a critical research agenda that focuses on initiatives that promote gender equity. I end with a few examples of what such an approach might look like.