“Some teachers are homophobic, you know, because they just don’t know any better”: Students reimagining power relations in schools

Abstract

In this chapter, we draw on findings from two different ethnographic studies with LGBTQI youth, who are reimagining teacher-student relationships and the positioning of young people in schools. We argue that the young people we talked with are disrupting two current (but divergent) discourses about youth in education. The first is a perception that youth have underdeveloped brains and are, therefore, untrustworthy and incapable of looking after their best interests. The second is the argument that young people - especially those who identify as queer or LGBTQI - are marginalised in schools. We do not contest the notion of marginality as such, but rather suggest that some young people go beyond subjectivities of resistance to take up ‘expert’ subjectivities on these issues.