Issues of power in relation to gender and sexuality in the EFL classroom – An overview
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Date
2014
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Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM
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Abstract
Schools in general and classrooms in particular are among society’s primary socializing
institutions (Freeman & McElhinny, 1996, p. 261; Adger, 2001). In particular, education, as an institution
of Gramsci’s ‘civil society’ (Jones, 2006), can be considered a grassroots space where hegemonic
gendered and sexual identities are constructed and regulated. This article looks at the context of the
EFL classroom – a discursive space where learners are potentially (re‐)constructed in relation to
various (gender) roles in society as well as learning the practices, values and rules of a given society
at large. In this paper we explore and discuss how the categories of gender and sexuality are represented,
(re‐)constructed and generally dealt with in this learning environment. We follow Foucault’s
(1978, 1979) conceptualization of power as something which “weaves itself discursively through
social organizations, meanings, relations and the construction of speakers’ subjectivities or identities”
(Baxter, 2003, p. 8) and is enacted and contested in every interaction (see Mullany, 2007). We see
power as being produced, reproduced, challenged and resisted in the EFL classroom in connection
with the construction of gender and sexuality. The article discusses how views on what/who is
‘powerful’ in the context of the EFL classroom have changed over the years, from the early privileging
of textbooks to the currently advocated central role of the teacher in addressing and promoting (or
not) traditional and/or progressive discourses of gender and sexuality. Critical pedagogies and queer
pedagogies are discussed as offering educators potent insights and tools to deal with heteronormativity
and various forms of discrimination in the EFL classroom as well as helpful means for empowering
all students by addressing their various identities. It is thus our contention that relationships
between gender, sexuality and EFL education are in need of urgent (re)addressing as existing research
is outdated, lacks methodological sophistication or is lacking in the Polish context.
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Keywords
critical pedagogies, EFL classroom, gender, heteronormativity, power, queer pedagogies, sexuality, talk‐around‐the‐text, textbooks
Citation
Journal of Gender and Power, No.1, Vol.1, 2014, pp. 49-66
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ISBN
978-83-232-2732-8