Journal of Language, Identity, and Education

ISSN: 1534-8458 (Print) 1532-7701 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hlie20

Queer Inquiry in Language Education

Cynthia D. Nelson

To cite this article: Cynthia D. Nelson (2006) Queer Inquiry in Language Education, Journal of
Language, Identity, and Education, 5:1, 1-9, DOI: 10.1207/s15327701jlie0501_1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327701jlie0501_1

Published online: 16 Nov 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 578

View related articles

Citing articles: 24 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hlie20
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND EDUCATION, 5(1), 1–9
Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Queer Inquiry in Language Education

Cynthia D. Nelson
University of Technology, Sydney

In the vast majority of language education literature, it seems as if we have been

collectively imagining a monosexual community of interlocutors (to rephrase
Blackledge’s [2003] title, “Imagining a monocultural community”). As a random
browsing through research publications or student learning materials is likely to
reveal, classroom cohorts and curricula tend to be constructed as domains in which
straight people are interacting exclusively with other straight people. Yet a random
browsing through popular media is likely to yield a much more diverse picture:
“Whether in advertising, film, performance art, the Internet, or the political dis-
courses of human rights, images of queer sexualities and cultures now circulate
around the globe” (Cruz-Malavé & Manalansan, 2002, p. 1). Given this sharp con-
trast, it seems worth asking whether the monosexualising tendencies (to again re-
phrase Blackledge, who writes of “monolingualizing tendencies” [2002, p. 72])
that permeate the literature of language education are limiting our collective ef-
forts to foster multilingualism and multiliteracies. To date, little consideration has
been given to this question, at least in published research. Hence this special issue.
Its purpose is to investigate how students, teachers, and researchers across the
fields of first-, second- and foreign-language education are currently grappling
with changing discourses, norms, and practices associated with sexual identities.
By examining the opportunities and challenges that are arising for participants as
sexual diversity increasingly infuses public discourses, and thus education set-
tings, this special issue aims to open up these matters for collegial exchange and
constructive discussion.
It is underpinned by questions like the following (see Nelson, in press): Has the
proliferation of increasingly public lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer
identities and communities led to a re-thinking of language teaching and research

Correspondence should be sent to Cynthia D. Nelson, ELSSA Centre, University of Technology,

Sydney, P. O. Box 123 Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia. E-mail: cynthia.nelson@uts.edu.au
The author thanks the ELSSA Centre for providing material support during the guest-editing of
this issue.
2 NELSON

practices? What initiatives are being taken to move beyond monosexual

pedagogies and research agendas, especially within education contexts that are
markedly transcultural and multilingual, and within regions that tend to be
underrepresented in gay/queer education literature? What innovations in theory
and practice are needed in order to actively engage a range of sexual identi-
ties—both as subject matter and as participant positionings—within language and
literacy programs?
While the five articles featured here are informed by an intriguing array of dis-
ciplinary (and regional) literatures, they share a broadly poststructuralist approach
to questions of identity, drawing—albeit to varying degrees—on queer studies and
queer education research. The modes of inquiry represented in this special issue
are varied—ethnography, discourse analysis, reflective practice, as are the sites of
inquiry—elementary school, high school, college, and adult education settings,
within Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Japan; also varied is the scope of inquiry,
ranging from a 4-year study of a student cohort to an analysis of a 7-minute excerpt
from one student interview. But common to all the articles is a willingness to ex-
plore questions that are rarely even mentioned in language education literature,
much less addressed in any depth—questions about how sexual identities are being
talked about (or silenced) within language and literacy education settings, and why
this matters.
Here I explore why “queer inquiry” is needed in language teaching and re-
search, and what it involves.

RECONCEPTUALISING LANGUAGE EDUCATION

AS A MULTISEXUAL SPACE

In language education literature, as readers of the Journal of Language, Identity,

and Education will be well aware, there has been an explosion of interest in exam-
ining how identities get represented, negotiated, enacted, and contested and what
these processes imply for language teaching and learning. In this valuable work it
is routinely noted that various identity domains are interconnected and mutually
inflecting, but the sociosexual dimensions of identity are just beginning to be ac-
knowledged and are very rarely investigated (for recent exceptions see Norton &
Pavlenko, 2004, and Simon-Maeda, 2004). Similarly, although identity research in
language education draws on critical social theory, postcolonial theory, gender
studies, and, increasingly, critical race studies, for the most part, queer studies re-
mains oddly overlooked (for an exception see Pennycook, 2004).
Turning to the more general education literature, significant attention is being
given to sexual diversity issues and queer studies in relation to teaching practices
and policies, so much so that this work now constitutes a subfield in its own
right (for but a few examples see Queer Theory and Education [Pinar, 1998]
 QUEER INQUIRY IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION 3

and, more recently, a 2004 special “queer edition” of the journal Discourse:
Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education). However, much of the queer edu-
cation work focuses overwhelmingly on monolingual (English-speaking) partici-
pants and is only beginning to give serious attention to how issues of sexual di-
versity interface with issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, especially
transnationally (see, for example, the recently released Youth, Education and
Sexualities [Sears, 2005], which discusses lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgendered youth in countries as diverse as Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Israel,
Japan, Mexico, and Russia, among others).
Within linguistics and applied linguistics, there has been a surge of sexual-
ity-related research on language. To name two prominent examples, Livia and
Hall’s (1997) edited collection Queerly Phrased analyses lexical items, speech
acts, grammatical conundrums, discourse strategies, coming-out stories, homo-
phobic slang—in short, myriad ways in which “alternative” sexual identities are
languaged—across a variety of geographical and historical locations; and
Cameron and Kulick’s (2003) Language and Sexuality explores language in rela-
tion to not only alternative sexual identities but to much broader questions of sexu-
ality and desire (see also Yep, Lovaas, & Elia, 2003, which takes a queer look at the
field of communication studies). Yet for the most part, the educational implica-
tions and applications of studies that analyse language in relation to sexuality have
yet to be explored—a gap that seems particularly glaring in the case of language
education, given its subject matter.
As to queer studies, despite the fact that this (trans)disciplinary area only emerged
in the past few decades, it has already had a major impact not only on education but
also on gender studies, literary criticism, social sciences, cultural and media studies,
globalisation studies, and other areas. Here I very briefly outline four key concepts
that seem especially germane to this special issue (for further discussion see Nelson,
1999, 2005, in press). First, ways of theorising and doing sexual identities are not pri-
vate matters but shaping forces with broad societal significance. Second, sexual
identities are understood to be performative acts, that is, discursively instantiated
and relationally enacted events. Third, sexual identities are produced (and policed)
through normalising practices that consolidate inequitable power relations (Butler,
1990). Finally, “queer,” historically a derisive term, has been reclaimed, and its cur-
rent double-edged meanings are paradoxical and somewhat elusive; it is now used in
a merely descriptive sense to mean “not straight,” but also in a deliberately defiant
sense to mean “not normal”—thereby contesting the normative practices that rein-
force the privileged, hegemonic status of heterosexuality (Warner, 1993). Defini-
tional quandaries are central to queer studies, given the “confluence of local and im-
ported conceptions … [that produces] distinct and sometimes conflicting hybrid
models of what (homo)sexuality ‘is ’” (Tan, 2001, pp. 124–125, writing of sexual
politics in Taiwan). The ways in which these, and other, queer concepts can inform
language education are discussed throughout this special issue.
4 NELSON

In a recent article I pose the question, “What might it look like to think queerly
and transnationally—in tandem—about teaching … ?” (Nelson, 2005, p. 110). As
I note in that article, language and literacy research routinely features student co-
horts that are multilingual and transcultural but rarely acknowledges that these co-
horts are also multisexual. This special issue invites us to listen to the voices of stu-
dents coming out as gay or lesbian; calling a classmate queer, whether
disparagingly or admiringly; actively dis-identifying themselves from being seen
as gay; or expressing curiosity about gay people. Conversely, while queer educa-
tion research routinely features sexually diverse voices, rarely are we invited (as
we are here), to consider the perspectives of bilingual/bicultural learners or of
those residing in, or hailing from, geographic regions that tend to be
underrepresented in queer literature (such as Somalia, in this case).
The field of language education would surely be enhanced by thinking of edu-
cation settings as multisexual spaces—and also by acknowledging that
sociosexual meanings infuse language, social interactions, and public discourses
(which crisscross national borders and linguistic contact zones). Such understand-
ings would need to recognise that hegemonic norms positing heterosexuality, and
only heterosexuality, as natural and desirable are potent and pervasive; yet, at the
same time, there are competing discourses in wide circulation that are challenging
this heteronormativity. To take an example from an article in this special issue
(Dalley and Campbell’s), being gay at school, students say, can mean being cool or
it can mean being killed.
The dichotomy encapsulated in that last statement raises another important
point that needs to be acknowledged here. However worthwhile it may be to re-
search sexual identity issues, attempting to do so has its challenges. It requires ze-
roing in on perspectives, or data, that can be exceedingly difficult to interpret, or
even just to access, given such things as the ambiguities and fluidity of sexualities
(Talburt & Steinberg, 2000); the threat of anti-gay discrimination and its poten-
tially limiting effects (e.g., who is willing to participate in a study and what they
are willing to say); and the interpersonal and intercultural complexities of broach-
ing sexuality-related topics. Alongside these challenges are the possible profes-
sional consequences of undertaking research in an often stigmatised area. For rea-
sons like these, a variety of research methods may need to be used, including
strategic self-reflexive accounts (see Miller, 1998; Nelson, 2005). At the same
time, it has been my experience that even when research on sexual identities in lan-
guage education is relentlessly empirical (e.g., Nelson, in press), some colleagues
will refer to it as “personal research,” which raises the question of whether re-
searching this identity domain is considered a private indulgence rather than a so-
cially significant contribution, a leisurely rather than a scholarly pursuit. I hope
that this special issue will begin to illustrate the value, to language education, of re-
search that examines sexual identity issues and engages queer studies, so that such
investigations can be undertaken without fear of reprisals.
 QUEER INQUIRY IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION 5

FIVE QUEER INVESTIGATIONS

The aim of this special issue, following Gough (2000), is not “translating local rep-
resentations of curriculum into a universalised discourse but rather … creating
transnational spaces in which local knowledge traditions in curriculum inquiry can
be performed together” (p. 339). In creating transnational spaces for queer inquiry,
it is important to feature a range of knowledges and practices—not because these
would be expected to translate readily across geographic or institutional sites but
because they can challenge us to reconsider and reinvent our own local practices.
With this in mind, I introduce the five articles.
The first article, by Phyllis Dalley and Mark David Campbell, provides a rare
and intimate look at peer discourses among (mostly bilingual) youth at a multicul-
tural Franco-Canadian high school. Using data from a 4-year ethnographic study
of student interactions, the analysis shows how discourses that privilege heterosex-
uality as the norm were strongly reinforced at schoolwide events but were grappled
with in more complex ways by a group of social-outcast girls who presented defi-
antly lesbian personas (at least in public), and by two gay-identified boys who ex-
perienced considerable social isolation at the school. A fairly grim picture
emerges: Even when school rhetoric promotes diversity, and even when students
express strong interest in talking about sexual diversity, it can be challenging to
create “queer discursive spaces” in which the silencing discourses of
heteronormativity can be countered.
The second article, by Luiz Paulo Moita-Lopes, investigates a fifth-grade liter-
acy class in Rio de Janeiro, in which gay themes were readily raised by the 10- to
12-year-olds (especially the boys) when interacting with each other—which, the
author suggests, is hardly surprising given the prevalence of sexualities within
popular discourses in Brazil. However, despite the gay-themed talk among the stu-
dents, and despite an official mandate to integrate sexual diversity issues into cur-
ricula, the teacher refused to address gay themes in class—even when asked di-
rectly by a student to do so. Moita-Lopes explains why he considers it unethical for
teachers to completely reject gay and lesbian material, and he illustrates a dis-
course-analysis approach that may be of practical use in incorporating gay and les-
bian themes into curricula in ways that further students’ literacy knowledge.
In the third article, Robert Ó’Móchain discusses his own efforts, as a teacher, to
incorporate gender and sexuality issues into English as a foreign language curricula
in contexts where open discussions of sexuality are rare, and not necessarily wel-
comed – in this case, in a cultural studies course at a Christian women’s college in
western Japan. Drawing especially on emerging literature about gay and lesbian is-
sues in Japan and in Japanese education, Ó’Móchain recounts his search for con-
text-appropriate ways of raising queer issues within a college environment that was
subtly heteronormative and with students who were unaccustomed to talking about
such issues in class. He illustrates that, in his class, examining the life-history narra-
6 NELSON

tives of queer students and teachers from the local region seemed to successfully
generate thoughtful discussions about language, sexual identity, and gender.
The fourth article, by Constance Ellwood, explores questions of sexuality in
connection with questions of researcher reflexivity. Looking closely at her own
part in shaping a research interview in which a young Japanese man studying Eng-
lish in Australia ended up coming out as gay, Ellwood explores various discourses
(of the confessional, of heteronormativity) that came into play in producing his
coming out moment—which, interestingly, occurred despite the fact that both of
them were trying to steer clear of such a “confession.” Taking a reflexive stance in
research, she concludes, means more than just attempting to name the impact of
one’s own subjectivity on the research, as if this could ever be fully known; it
means being willing to explore the unknown, and the uncomfortable, in oneself.
The final article, by Greg Curran, is a reflective Forum piece in which the au-
thor, an openly gay English as a second language teacher of adult refugee, immi-
grant, and international students at an Australian language school, reconsiders his
teaching practices in light of his evolving understandings of queer theory. Curran
focuses on possible ways of responding to the types of questions that students were
asking about “gays” when the topic came up in class. He recounts the challenges
that he faced in trying to respond to student questions in ways that would draw at-
tention to the heteronormative assumptions underpinning them, and he proposes
alternative ways of responding that might more effectively engage students in
reframing and deconstructing the “hegemonic sexual order” evident in their own
questions.

TOWARDS QUEER INQUIRY

Taken together, the articles in this special issue begin to demonstrate that the field
of language and literacy development can indeed benefit by incorporating a queer
“syntax of inquiry” (borrowing a phrase from Mann, 1975, p. 155) within our re-
search literature (as well as our teaching practices), thereby acknowledging that
identities do encompass sexual identities; that sexual identities are, in fact, plural;
and that they pertain to ordinary aspects of daily living rather than being restricted
to sex acts (see Britzman’s 2000 critique of how sexuality gets conceptualised in
education contexts). In a queer syntax of inquiry, sexual identity could be either a
central, intended focus of study (as in Ó’Móchain’s article) or an unanticipated
theme that nonetheless seems worth pursuing (as in Ellwood’s article), or at least
mentioning. In any case, the goal would be to provide practical guidance and pro-
voke productive debate—within classroom, policy, and research forums—about
matters of sexual identity, sexuality, and sexual diversity and how these interface
with other matters. In order to be of practical use within the diverse arenas of lan-
guage education, queer inquiry would need to be transnational as well as
 QUEER INQUIRY IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION 7

transdisciplinary in scope, drawing, as needed, on research into language and iden-

tity, language and sexuality, education and sexuality, and sexuality and
globalisation.
Undertaking queer inquiry means turning our attention to sexual matters (iden-
tities, norms, relationships) within everyday patterns of thinking, speaking, learn-
ing, and working. It means highlighting straight, lesbian, bisexual, and gay per-
spectives, along with the paradoxes of producing such categorisations (as in
Curran’s article) and seeking out often-overlooked perspectives across a matrix of
sexual, linguistic, (trans)cultural, and (trans)national identifications. Practicing
queer inquiry involves unpacking the language acts through which sexual identi-
ties are constituted and enacted and made to seem normal or not normal (as in
Moita-Lopes’ article), thereby tracing the workings of heteronormativity and its
effects, both blatant and subtle (as in Dalley & Campbell’s article).
If, on the contrary, we continue to construct language education as a peculiarly
desexualised zone, or, to look at this another way, as a heavily (and uncritically)
heterosexualised zone, then we would need to consider the costs of doing so. On a
strictly pragmatic level, this would limit opportunities for first-, second- and for-
eign-language learners (whatever their own sexual identifications or dis-identifica-
tions) to develop the types of fluency required to take part in—and to cri-
tique—contemporary discourses (which increasingly involve sexual diversity
alongside other aspects of diversity). On a broader, ethical level, excluding queer
perspectives and knowledges from our classrooms and our literature is, in effect, a
way of enforcing compulsory heterosexuality, which hardly seems an appropriate
role for language educators and researchers.
In closing, I would like to explain that in making the difficult decisions about
which submissions to accept, given the space limitations, I chose those that I found
somewhat unsettling or provocative in the belief that potentially discomfiting stud-
ies that take interesting risks have a way of gnawing at our imaginations until new
ways of thinking emerge. (As Susan Sontag [1990, p. 8] has said, albeit on another
subject, “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.”) My deep appreciation
goes to all who have contributed in various ways to this special issue: those who
submitted abstracts for consideration; the manuscript reviewers for their close, in-
sightful readings; the journal’s editors, editorial board, and production team for
making this special issue possible; and, above all, the six authors, whose dedica-
tion and uncommon adventurousness should help to push language education, and
other areas too, in new directions.

CODA

While finalising this article, I was visited by a teacher of Italian to English-speak-

ing adults here in Australia. With much enthusiasm she explained that, after hear-
8 NELSON

ing about a recent symposium on “queer agencies” (Allatson & Pratt, 2005), she
started reading queer theory and rethinking her habitual teaching practices. For ex-
ample, when having the class role-play various scenarios involving a family, she
used to elicit volunteers for the parts of father, mother, and children, but this time
she simply asked her students to form their own family groupings for the role-play.
Much to her surprise, two students bounced up and said they would be portraying a
family that consisted of two lesbians, then on went the role-plays—which not only
led to stimulating class discussions but also reinvigorated her own passion for
teaching to a degree that she had not experienced in years. I share this anecdote
here because I think it can be read as an inspiration for our field: rethinking our ha-
bitual heteronormative practices can open up new spaces for exploring language
and learning.

REFERENCES

Allatson, P., & Pratt, M. (2005, June). Queer agencies and social change in international perspectives: A
positioning paper. Queer agencies and social change in international perspectives, Annual Sympo-
sium of the Institute for International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
Blackledge, A. (2002). The discursive construction of national identity in multilingual Britain. Journal
of Language, Identity, and Education,1, 67–87.
Blackledge, A. (2003). Imagining a monocultural community: Racialization of cultural practice in edu-
cational discourse. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education. 2, 331–347.
Britzman, D. (2000). Precocious education. In S. Talburt & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Thinking queer: Sex-
uality, culture, and education (pp. 33–59). New York: Peter Lang.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
Cameron, D. & Kulick, D. (2003). Language and sexuality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Cruz-Malavé, A., & Manalansan IV, M. F. (Eds.). (2002) Queer globalisations: Citizenship and the af-
terlife of colonialism. New York: New York University Press.
Gough, N. (2000). Locating curriculum studies in the global village. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 32,
329–342.
Livia, A. & Hall, K. (Eds.). (1997). Queerly phrased: Language, gender, and sexuality. New York: Ox-
ford University Press.
Mann, J. S. (1975). A discipline of curriculum theory. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing: The
reconceptualists (pp. 149–164). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.
Miller, J. L. (1998). Autobiography as queer curriculum practice. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), Queer theory in
education (pp. 365–373). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Nelson, C. (1999). Sexual identities in ESL: Queer theory and classroom inquiry. TESOL Quarterly, 33,
371–391.
Nelson, C. D. (2005). Transnational/Queer: Narratives from the contact zone. Journal of Curriculum
Theorizing, 21(2):109–117.
Nelson, C. D. (in press). Out to educate? Sexual identities in language education. Mahwah, NJ: Law-
rence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Norton, B., & Pavlenko, A. (Eds.). (2004). Gender and English language learners. Alexandria, VA:
TESOL.
 QUEER INQUIRY IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION 9

Pennycook, A. (2004). Performativity and language studies. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 1,
1–19.
Pinar, W. F. (Ed.). (1998). Queer theory in education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Sears, J. T. (Ed.). (2005). Youth, education, and sexualities: An international encyclopedia (two vol-
umes). Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Simon-Maeda, A. (2004). The complex construction of professional identities: Female EFL educators
in Japan speak out. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 405–436.
Sontag, S. (1990). Against interpretation. New York: Anchor.
Talburt, S., & Steinberg, S. R. (Eds.). (2000). Thinking queer: Sexuality, culture, and education (pp.
33–59). New York: Peter Lang.
Tan, C. K. (2001). Transcending sexual nationalism and colonialism: Cultural hybridisation as a pro-
cess of sexual politics in ’90s Taiwan. In J. C. Hawley (Ed.), Postcolonial, queer: Theoretical inter-
sections (pp. 123–137). Albany: State University of New York.
Warner, M. (1993). Introduction. In M. Warner (Ed.), Fear of a queer planet: Queer politics and social
theory (pp. vii–xxxi). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Yep, G. A., Lovaas, K. E., & Elia, J. P. (Eds.). (2003). Queer theory and communication: From disci-
plining queers to queering the discipline(s). New York: Harrington Park Press.