Finnish queer teachers’ understanding of their language use in the workplace

ABSTRACT

Finnish queer teachers work in an esteemed profession but also belong to a marginalized minority group. This article analyses interview data focusing on non-heterosexual teachers’ understanding of their language use in schools, drawing from sociolinguistic research with queer linguistics. Methodologically, Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to the data to explore the influence of heteronormativity shaping the way queer teachers understand their language use, resting on the knowledge that language use constructs social meanings and establishes discourses. The analysis provides discourses of safety, incompatibility and resistance that demonstrate the construction of social meanings to the understanding of language use, suggesting the main issues in heteronormative schools are connected to safety and experiencing incompatibility as a teacher. Queer teachers are also compelled to resist heteronormativity in many ways. The article concludes that there are heteronormative power settings specific to educational contexts, information that could be utilized for initiating change.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer teachers
• heteronormativity
• discourse
• language use

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The umbrella term ‘queer’ is used due to the term’s criticality towards heteronormativity and the heterosexual norm and acknowledging the diverse use of LGBTQIA+ -terminology in research.

2 In accordance with the University of Helsinki ethical guidelines and Finnish National Board of Research Integrity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Waldemar von Frenckell Foundation and the Kone Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Tommi Niinisalo

Tommi Niinisalo is a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Educational Sciences. His PhD research is about Finnish queer teachers, focusing on their discourses and language use.