Approaching “sensitive” topics: criticality and permissibility in research-led teaching about children, sexualities, and schooling

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the feasibility and desirability of radical, critical pedagogies in teaching higher education students about “sensitive” topics with children, sexualities, and schooling used as an example to explore this. Reflecting on early career research-led teaching, I confront anxieties informing decisions about what and how to teach children’s geographies of sexualities in light of student and institutional expectations and evaluations, and in relation to how colleagues have taught. Scrutinising my pedagogy with respect to what could have been more evocative teaching and uncomfortable learning, I question the extent to which I achieved the radical and critical potential I foresaw in introducing teaching on children and sexualities; teaching which – alongside student and institutional expectations and evaluations – has been informed through broader social norms of acceptability and permissibility, and contemporary imperatives for knowledge to be “relevant” and “useful”. In gesturing toward more challenging teaching, I consider the appropriateness of trigger/content “warnings” and explore speakability (after Monk) as a strategy for approaching “sensitive” topics, including age of consent. As an alternative to trigger/content warnings, I explore principles of content previews/ forecasts when broaching “sensitive” topics while remaining critical of what constitutes “sensitive” topics/content throughout.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• sexualities
• research-led teaching
• sensitive topics
• evaluations
• trigger/ content warnings

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the students who participated in modules discussed here, particularly those who provided evaluations. I would also like to thank colleagues who provided insights that are also drawn on in this paper. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Martin Zebracki and Kath Browne who commented on an earlier version of this paper and peer-reviewers for constructive feedback which greatly improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. I gave one lecture on children, sexualities and schooling in this co-taught module and those who attended remarked how they had been looking forward to this given a contemporary onus on schools towards equality, inclusion, and homophobia. This represented students’ first and only formal curricula engagement with these topics and children’s geographies epistemologies/ontologies/theories/politics more generally, including children’s voice and agency, autonomy, and “competence”. Some students enrolled on an optional, third-year geographies of gender and sexualities module a semester earlier (discussed later), but this only gave one similar lecture on children, sexualities and schooling.

2. These guest lectures, often delivered in tandem with ‘Homophobia in Schools’ public engagement events aimed at teacher trainers/trainee teachers, policy makers and youth workers were typically students first and only formal curricula introduction to combined themes of children, sexualities and schooling.

3. For example, Nast’s (1999) exploration of the cultural politics of student evaluations demonstrate how these are used to assess teaching and can be linked to module retention as well as career development.

4. Administering and co-ordinating the module. Also known as module leader.

5. As with the Geographies of Education module, this one lecture represented students’ first and only formal curricula engagement with children, sexualities and schooling. Students are formally exposed to geographies of sexualities in first and second year, but these are broad introductory lectures.

6. Cf. Simon (2009) who reports how broaching sexuality in geography already seemed controversial by some students before delving into sensitive topics.

7. A prominent and politically mainstream Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans campaigning organisation.

8. A 2006–2009 queer progressive politics inspired project (see DePalma & Atkinson, 2009; Author, 2018, forthcoming).

9. Processes and practices through which heterosexuality is normalised (see Warner, 1993).

10. It’s worth noting that students opt to take this module so – arguably – students not comfortable with broaching such topics would not have enrolled. That said, degree pathways, timetable clashes, a limited number of final year options, and the perception of easier higher marks for this kind of module means some students may not have wholeheartedly signed up.

11. Cf. Evans (this issue) on how students had a keen interest in discussing FGM/C, which could be perceived as a “sensitive” topic.

12. Here I cast my mind back to disciplinary paradigm shifts instigated by feminist geographers who brought inconceivable topics like home and the body into the realm of geographical inquiry (see Rose, 1993).

13. This example serves as an important historical moment in the emerging sexual politics of Stonewall and is in the vein of challenging “a world supposedly won” (see Browne et al., 2019; also see Author, forthcoming).

14. Indeed, Simon (2009) argues that films can be comforting for students when discussing “difficult” topics (also see Evans, this issue).

15. Dowler goes on to argue that “we must facilitate […] uncomfortable discussions in a trusting and comfortable setting” (2002, p. 69), which – for Simon (2009) – begins with a preferable seminar teaching format.