Date: Wednesday, 31 August 2022

For the inaugural launch in our Book Launch Series, AVReQ was honoured to host Professor Dennis Francis. For this momentous occasion, Professor zethu Matebeni (UFH) was in conversation with Professor Dennis Francis (SU) about their new book, Queer Activism in South African Education: Disrupting Cis(hetero)normativity in Schools. Offering a vital, critical contribution to debates on gender, sexuality and schooling in South Africa, this book highlights how South African educational practices, discourses and structures normalize cisheteronormativity, along with how these are resisted within schools and through contemporary forms of activism.

Offering a vital, critical contribution to debates on gender, sexuality and schooling in South Africa, this book highlights how South African educational practices, discourses and structures normalize cisheteronormativity, along with how these are resisted within schools and through contemporary forms of activism. Not only does it add fresh insights to the existing research literature on gender, sexualities and schooling, it also underscores the valuable contributions of queer and transgender social movements, which have made influential legislative, teaching, learning and support contributions to education. Drawing on ethnographic research with queer and transgender activists, teachers, school managers, parents and school attending youth, the book provides everyday real-life quotes and observations offering a deeply critical contribution to the debates on gender and sexualities, education and activism. Using spatial and affect theories, it troubles the assumptions that frame this field of research to make a novel contribution to the national and international literature and research. The book provides research-based insights for thinking about and calls for informed action to challenging cisheteronormativity within and beyond schools.

About the author

Prof Dennis Francis is a South African-based scholar and activist whose work engages with questions related to gender, sexualities and schooling.  Dennis is a former Dean of Education and currently Professor of Sociology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Their research, located in the sociology of education, focuses on how educational structures, discourses and practices reproduce cisheteronormativity and social inequality in schools, and how these are also resisted and challenged.

https://www0.sun.ac.za/sociology/prof-dennis-francis/

Publication details

Publisher:‎ Routledge | 18 August 2022 | Hardback ISBN 9781032034416 | eBook ISBN 9781003187295

Reviews

“This book is invaluable for those interested in creating inclusive and transformative environments that affirm sexuality and gender diversity. Drawing from rich empirical insights, it traces how cisheteronormativity is normalized in schools and highlights contemporary forms of activism and resistance for social change. Francis offers new solutions for challenging cisheteronormativity within and beyond schools when these institutions join forces with Queer and Transgender Organizations.”