“I think we had one or two of those, but they weren't really”: Teacher and Learner Talk on Bisexuality in South African Schools

ABSTRACT

The present study answers the following questions: How does bisexuality feature in teacher and learner talk on gender and sexuality diversity and what priorities, if any, does an analysis of such talk on bisexuality hold for the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity? Drawing on in-depth interviews with bisexual learners and classroom observations and interviews with teachers, the findings show that teacher's talk is imbued with themes highlighting that bisexual youth are confused, transitory, unrestrained, hypersexual, and somewhat at risk. Their talk of bisexuality is heterosexualized denying and discouraging young people as bisexual. Equally striking is how bisexual youth, spurred on by different experiences, understand and, in turn, resist heterosexist and heteronormative practices. The findings call into question the teaching of nonheterosexualities in South African education.

KEYWORDS:

• Bisexuality
• biphobia
• gender
• and sexuality diversity
• schooling
• South Africa

Notes

1. A system of legislated and institutionalized oppression and segregation based on race in South Africa.

2. Statistics about media coverage for the first week of the trial were obtained by assessing almost 200 million international social networks, 60,000 online newspapers around the globe, thousands of printed publications from SA and other parts of Africa, as well as 40 South African radio and TV stations (Sapa, 2014).

3. Life Orientation (LO) is a learning area, introduced in the late 1990s as part of curriculum transformation in South Africa and is intended to equip learners with the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes for successful living and learning (Rooth, 2005). LO comprises a diverse number of components: guidance, life skills education, health promotion, physical development and movement, environmental education, citizenship, and human rights education and religion education.

4. The Population Registration Act laid the foundation for apartheid and its vision of separate development, by requiring all South Africans to be categorized as either African, Coloured, Indian, or White. Post-apartheid, South Africans continue to use these racial categories to describe themselves and to some extent continue to shape postapartheid understandings of how South Africans define themselves and others.

5. South African schools are divided into quintiles based on local community resources.

6. Based on the ethical requirements as prescribed by the University of The Free State Ethics Committee.

7. A negative abbreviated term for lesbian.

8. Brother or male friend.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dennis A. Francis

Dennis A. Francis is a former dean of Education and currently a professor of sociology at Stellenbosch University. He holds a PhD in sociology and has published extensively in the areas of gender and sexuality diversity and schooling. Dennis is the author of Troubling the Teaching and Learning of Gender and Sexuality Diversity in South African Education (2017), published as part of the Palgrave Macmillan Queer Studies and Education. In 2014, he was awarded the South African Education Association Medal of Honor for research.