NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
PDF on ERIC Download full text
ERIC Number: EJ905793
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1939-4225
EISSN: N/A
Adult Learning in the Queer Nation: A Foucauldian Analysis of Educational Strategies for Social Change
Walker, Wayland
New Horizons in Adult Education & Human Resource Development, v23 n3 p10-17 Sum 2009
Adult education for social change can occur within social movements, and the fight for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer (LGBTQ) rights has included educational strategies designed to challenge heterosexist and homophobic systems of power. This article explores how the Queer Nation movement of the early 1990s deployed a Foucauldian (1976/1990) reading of power-relations to create educational interventions that allowed relatively small numbers of activists to affect powerful social change. By analyzing how power functioned within American society, queer activists designed specific interventions, which, while often humorous, sarcastic, and lighthearted, were nonetheless effective in disrupting prejudices because they demonstrated the absurdity of heterosexist beliefs. In making the theoretical move from object of hatred to subject who resists oppression, activists in the Queer Nation movement changed American culture and contributed to the social and legal gains made by LGBTQ people over the next two decades.
Florida International University College of Education. 11200 SW 8th Street, ZEB 361A, Miami, FL 33199. Tel: 305-348-6151; Fax: 305-348-1515; e-mail: horizons@fiu.edu; Web site: http://education.fiu.edu/newhorizons
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A