The Cultural Politics of Queer Theory in Education Research

This book represents the editors’ intention to disrupt cycles of thinking about the place of queer theory in educational research. With contributions from both those who find queer theory problematic, and those who see a productive place for it in education and research, The Cultural Politics of Queer Theory in Education Research aims to encourage dialogue about the objects and subjects of queer research, the forms of politics incited by the use of queer theory in education, and the methodological approaches used by scholars when queer(y)ing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

The Cultural Politics of Queer Theory in Education Research represents the editors’ intention to disrupt cycles of thinking about the place of queer theory in educational research. The book aims to encourage dialogue about the objects and subjects of queer research, the forms of politics incited by the use of queer theory in education, and the methodological approaches used by scholars when queer(y)ing.

The contributions to this book come from those who find queer theory problematic, as well as from those who continue to see a productive place for queer research in education, however that may be defined. The editors have collected contributions that attend to the boundaries that are placed around queer research in education by researchers themselves, and by peers, ethics committees, funding bodies and university and government bureaucracies. Considering how key researchers in gender and education identify with, or deliberately distance themselves from, queer theory, this collection grapples with the contemporary cultural politics of doing queer theoretical work in different education spaces and places. In short, it seeks to disrupt what people think they already know about the ‘place’ of queer theory in education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.