Gay and bisexual male youth as educator activists and cultural workers: the queer critical praxis of three Canadian high‐school students

Abstract

This paper considers how three Canadian high‐school students—Ryan, Jeremy, and Bruce—engaged in queer critical praxis intended to free lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans‐identified, and queer (LGBTQ) students from the silence, exclusion, and symbolic and physical violence that heterosexism and homophobia provoke in schools. We, the authors, construct the students’ biographical ethnographies to help us explore their lived and learned experiences in relation to the cultures of the schools and communities that contextualize these experiences. In this exploration, we describe their educational activism and cultural work through which they problematize queer‐exclusive educational policies and practices, enhance communication and strategic action in the intersection of the moral and the political, and monitor the state of the struggle, the extent of transformation, and the need for further social and cultural action in schools. We position this work as queer critical praxis to advance LGBTQ inclusion. In delving into this praxis, we examine the contextual, relational, and dispositional complexities of three facets of Ryan, Jeremy, and Bruce’s work for cultural change and social transformation: the impetus that drove their praxis, the supports that enabled them to keep going, and their ensuing educational activism and cultural work.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) standard research grant awarded to André P. Grace.