The Educational Forum is seeking articles for its Fall 2024 themed issue: Exploring gender identity in complex times: Creating educational spaces where the diverse and fluid constructions of gender identity of students and educators are examined and celebrated.
For this issue, we recognize how much progress we have made in understanding the complexities of gender identity both on the ground, among children and young adults, as well as in academic fields such as women’s studies. We embrace that knowledge that gender identities are not fixed or stable but rather are constantly “shifting, contradictory, dynamic, even fractured, multiple and socially constructed” (Larremore, 2016, p. 8). Building from Judith Butler’s (1999) work, we also recognize that dominant binary constructs of gender and heteronormativity intersect in the heterosexual matrix and perpetuate gender stereotypes in school and society. And yet, too often, educators shy away from conversations with their students about gender, whether it be their own gender, the gender of their students, or the gender of characters in a text. They wait for kids to raise issues rather than opening conversations about these topics. Sometimes they do this because they are operating from a conventional developmental model that centers on the innocence of children (Klein & Taylor, 2023). Other times these topics are considered taboo or “unspeakable” (Sokolower, 2016), allowing for silence. But as we are continually reminded, silence is not neutral and classrooms should be places where we have these conversations. In this special issue, we take up the overarching question, “How does gender identity emerge in your teaching/research?”
We invite authors to creatively explore the notion of gender identity in theory and in practice to investigate questions such as: How do you invite discussions about gender identity in the classroom? How do you design curriculum or classroom texts and resources that allow students to inquire about gender identity and examine their own gender identity? How do you encourage students to disrupt binary expectations of gender and welcome fluidity? How do you use critical literacy to name sexism and misogyny? How do you cultivate feminist and queer stances in the classroom? How do you bring your whole gender identity, as educators and researchers, to the classroom? How does a focus on gender identity enhance your teaching or your research? What do these explorations offer the field of education?
These questions suggest topic areas but are not exhaustive. We encourage submissions not only from scholars and researchers, but also from students, teachers, artists, parents, and community organizers.
We invite authors to push the boundaries and constraints of traditional academic writing in their submissions, to be playful, authentic, and creative in their writing. We welcome research that is arts-based, autobiographical, ethnographic, autoethnographic, collaborative, or phenomenological. Besides traditional submissions, we will also consider a variety of genres for this issue including scripts, comics, poems, song lyrics, fictional narratives, photographic images, personal memoirs, links to videos, or manuscripts that combine genres.
