Abstract
This project explores the positioning of queer students and queer curriculum in schools with a specific focus on elementary education. Using intersectionality as a guiding framework along with queer theories, educational theories, and feminist theories, this project examines and critiques how queer subjectivities have (not) been included in schools via curriculum for elementary school children. In an effort to better understand how educators have been successfully incorporating queer topics into their classrooms, this study uses qualitative research methods, specifically semi-structured interviews with teachers in New York City. The findings from this study have been used to create a 23-lesson curriculum for 4th grade teachers that investigates bodies, puberty, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Furthermore, the curriculum uses an intersectional lens to explore how various identities such as race, gender, ability, sexuality, and religion intersect to inform understandings of privilege and discrimination.
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DOI
10.24968/2473-912X.3.1.4
Recommended Citation
Butensky, Emma and Williams Brown, Kimberly
(2021)
"Queering Elementary Education: A Queer Curriculum for 4th Grade,"
#CritEdPol: Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies at Swarthmore College: Vol. 3
:
Iss.
1
, Article 4: 47-63.
DOI: 10.24968/2473-912X.3.1.4
Available at:
https://works.swarthmore.edu/critedpol/vol3/iss1/4
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Elementary Education Commons