Teaching Gender: a phenomenology of gender in schools and four modes of transformation

Abstract

In this dissertation, I offer three chapters on the varied and partial realities of gender at work in schooling. This post-intentional phenomenological research project collects data from both collective and individual interviews with fellow queer teachers, as well as personal reflections and theoretical review. Through analysis of this data, the text aims to get smarter about our resistance to gender oppression in schools. Employing the experiences of research participants as well as a statistical review on the experience of queer youth from Human Rights Campaign, chapter one is a pragmatic address to what teachers must know and do when it comes to gender in schools. Chapter two relies on conversations from feminist marxism to articulate the sexist exploitation of teachers, as visibilized by the teacher role during the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, inspired by the call to change that chapters one and two both offer, chapter three articulates four different modes of change that we ask for and enact when resisting oppression. In total, the objective of this dissertation is to represent multiple and partial considerations on gender in schools and urge further research in the ways we discuss how gender is lived out in school spaces.