Queer Activism in South African Education: Disrupting Cis (Hetero) Normativity in Schools

Offering a vital, critical contribution to debates on gender, sexuality and schooling in South Africa, this book highlights how South African educational practices, discourses and structures normalize cisheteronormativity, along with how these are resisted within schools and through contemporary forms of activism.

Not only does it add fresh insights to the existing research literature on gender, sexualities and schooling, it also underscores the valuable contributions of queer and transgender social movements, which have made influential legislative, teaching, learning and support contributions to education. Drawing on ethnographic research with queer and transgender activists, teachers, school managers, parents and school attending youth, the book provides everyday real-life quotes and observations offering a deeply critical contribution to the debates on gender and sexualities, education and activism. Using spatial and affect theories, it troubles the assumptions that frame this field of research to make a novel contribution to the national and international literature and research.

The book provides research-based insights for thinking about and calls for informed action to challenging cisheteronormativity within and beyond schools.

Dennis A. Francis is a former Dean of Education and currently Professor of Sociology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.