Heterotopias in physical education: towards a queer pedagogy?
This article sets out to outline how prevailing gender structures can be challenged in physical education (PE) by exploring queer potentials in an event that took place during a dancing lesson in an upper secondary PE class. The event and its features were documented through video recording
and post-lesson interviews with the teacher and some of the students. It is argued that the event can be seen as a heterotopia, according to Michel Foucault a ‘counter-site’ enabling the resistance to authority, where the production of normalcy was challenged. Furthermore,
even though the event happened spontaneously, the authors suggest that it can show a way towards a queer pedagogy for PE through teaching paradoxically; it indicates a preferred ethos of the lesson and the use of conceptual tools by teachers and students that make them able to intervene in
the production of normalcy.
Keywords: education; gender; heteronormativity; sexuality; teaching paradoxically
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: GIH Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden 2: School of Health and Medical Studies, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden
Publication date: 23 February 2014
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