See Me, Hear Me ... Queerly Visible: Conversations about family and school with non-heterosexual parents and their children
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Date
2012
Authors
Keener, Terrah
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of South Australia
Abstract
This thesis explores the schooling experiences of non-heterosexual parents and their children. It incorporates a multi-layered narrative and arts-influenced methodology to interrogate issues surrounding silence and queer visibility within a school setting. Leveraging visual arts and performance as both a means of data generation and data representation, this research illustrates how dominant cultural practices and narratives surrounding school and family perpetuate heteronormative ideology, while excluding and silencing non-heterosexual parents and their children.
These claims are based on analysis of schooling and family stories as represented by parents and children. The stories were generated by employing a multi-layered narrative arts-based research methodology that was derived from narrative inquiry, arts-informed research methods, and a/r/tography. Using queer theory as a theoretical frame and at times a foil, the dissertation problematizes the normalization of school and family both within the school system and the larger community. This research employs queer theory to question and disrupt assumptions about non-heterosexual parents and the queer families they construct.
The dissertation rests on the invisibility of non-heterosexual identities both within a school and family context and interrogates what happens when school life and home life are incongruent to one another. The stories represented within this thesis provide a window into the experience of parents and children who on a daily basis run the risk of not being ―seen‖ by their teachers, school administrators, and the broader school community.
Description
Keywords
Arts informed research , Homosexual parents , Queer visibility , School Children