‘To correct, punish and praise’ LRC leaders experiences and expressions of non-heterosexuality in Namibian schools

ABSTRACT

Learner representative councils (LRCs) have been constituted to foster democratic participation and citizenry in Namibian schools. Drawing on a larger UNESCO project that focused on gender violence and schooling, we report on focus group interviews with LRC members in schools in Windhoek. Working with how heterosexuality is normalised and constituted as dominant in schools, we explore how LRCs in Namibian schools respond to and confront non-heterosexuality. The findings show broader societal heterosexism and heteronormativity reflected in the attitudes and responses of the LRC leaders who draw on heteronormative discourses to regulate, silence and rehabilitate non-heterosexuality. Invoking Foucault’s use of pleasure, our article provides insights for how the role of the LRC can be broadened to create socially just and inclusive schooling for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.

KEYWORDS:

• Homophobia
• gender and sexuality diversity
• learner representative councils
• Namibia
• pleasure
• heteronormativity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dennis 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.

Anthony Brown is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interest includes sexual diversity and inclusion in mainstream education, critical pedagogies for inclusive education, teacher education and social cohesion. The author’s recent publications appear in the South African Journal of Higher Education (2016), Commonwealth Youth and Development (2016) and African Identities (2017).

ORCID

Dennis Francis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6353-4120

Notes

1 Under the Namibian Constitution, international law that is binding on Namibia is automatically part of Namibian law and enforceable by Namibian courts. International law binding on Namibia should also be a guide to the interpretation of the Namibian Constitution (Gender Research and Advocacy Project 2015, 46).

2 Sam Nujoma and other state leaders have publicly denounced homosexuality as un-Namibian (Lorway 2007).

3 A pejorative term for gay men.