Queer of Color Literacies as Subversive Reading Practice: How Queer Students of Color Subvert Power in the Classroom

ABSTRACT

Queer of color literacies name the ways LGBTQ students of color read the world textually, particular to their intersecting minoritizations through race, gender, and sexuality. Queer of color literacies challenge which reading skills are deemed intellectually worthy of inquiry in schools. Rather than accept a subordinate and negated position to a white cisheteropatriarchal norm, queer of color literacies subvert schools’ normative values. Using critical autoethnography, I reread critical incidents from my classroom teaching through queer of color scholarship to reimagine how teachers might sustain their students’ queer of color literacy practices, which include reading through play, disidentification, and textual shadows. Achieving equity in schools requires moving beyond traditional measures of excellence by further grounding excellence in queer of color students’ subversive analytic practices and subcultural assets.

Acknowledgments

I thank Jody Polleck (CUNY Hunter College) for providing feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tadashi Dozono

Tadashi Dozono is an assistant professor of history/social science education at California State University Channel Islands. Grounded in his experiences in teaching social studies in New York City public schools, he centers the daily theorizing that BIPOC and LGBTQ students engage in as a result of their marginalization. His research applies cultural studies, ethnic studies, queer theory, and critical theory to emphasize accountability toward the experiences of marginalized students in social studies pedagogy and curriculum.