Reengaging Theology in Educational Studies

Abstract

This work seeks to do two things. First to make an argument for a robust engagement with theology as a theoretical framework for critical educational research. And second, the piece draws upon contemporary queer and progressive Christian theology, in particular, theological interventions from Marcela Althaus Reid’s Indecent Theology to think differently about how educational researchers might frame the way we say yes, as Jen Gilbert suggests, to the students who show up in the classroom. This intervention seeks to center theology as a way to think differently with LGBTQ issues in schooling by arguing with an epistemology that is often used to exclude rather than include marginalized populations.

Notes

1 Kaveny, reading through the Book of Jonah, considers the merits of a hermeneutics that takes, for instance, the prophet’s psalm of praise for god while still trapped in the belly of the whale, as evidence that the audience is being signaled to the absurdity of the text as it stands. The point being that we ought “take with a grain of salt any prophet’s claim that he has privileged access to the mind of God” (406). Laughing in the face of the absurdity of ‘data walls’ or the latest ‘research’ from any Institute with dark money behind it might just be the way the start to undermining claims made with religious fervor and turn educational discourse back towards the deliberative rather than the prophetic.

2 https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-departments-education-and-justice-release-joint-guidance-help-schools-ensure-civil-rights-transgender-students

3 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/02/23/trump-administration-reverses-title-ix-guidance-transgender-protections

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