Homophobia and sexuality diversity in South African schools: A review

ABSTRACT

Post-apartheid, there has been an increase in research on issues of gender and sexuality diversity in South African schools. To build upon and advance gender and sexuality diversity studies, I conducted a review of the literature that addresses how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth experience schooling and how schools, if at all, respond to gender and sexuality diversity. Of the 27 publications reviewed, the findings show how schools proliferate compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity. The proliferation makes explicit gender and sexuality binaries in the curriculum, pedagogy, and school culture that assume that learners identify as heterosexual and embody heteronormative gender expression and expectations. In a nutshell, the corpus of research describes the challenges LGBT youth face in schools and points to the need for change. I conclude by offering ideas about schooling, teacher education, and future research on gender and sexuality diversity in South African education.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender and sexuality diversity
• heterosexism
• homophobia
• schooling
• South Africa

Notes

1. The term refers to a hermaphrodite figure, but in local day-to-day talk it is used as a derogatory word for gay and lesbian people. However, gay and lesbian people have reappropriated the term for their own use (Matabeni, 2011, p. 156).

2. Supra-visibility, or super-visibility (Brighenti, 2007).

3. The Department of Basic Education has grouped schooling grades into two phases called General Education and Training (includes grade 0 plus grades 1–9) and Further Education and Training (includes grades 10–12).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dennis A. Francis

Dennis A. 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.