The Beyond Bullying Project: Stories of Youth, Sexuality, and Schooling
Drs. Jessica Fields (San Francisco State University) and Jen Gilbert (York University)
Location: Sankey Chamber
Date: Oct. 27, 2014 from 10:30-12 noon
Conversations about LGBTQ youth in the United States and Canada tend to focus on preventing anti-LGBTQ bullying. The Beyond Bullying Project provokes new ways of inviting, understanding, and imagining sexualities to flourish in schools. Storytelling booths were set up in three racially diverse, American high schools. Students, teachers, administrators and community members were asked to enter this private space and to tell their stories about LGBTQ sexuality or gender, generating over 400 stories about friendship, family, love, culture and the ordinary trials of living your life in school. These stories push against the sole equation of LGBTQ sexuality and bullying and asking for these stories intervenes in the institutional and informal ways sexuality often resides in schools.
This talk is offered as part of the Child and Youth Studies Colloquium Series and co-sponsored by Social Justice and Equity Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Social Justice Research Institute.
