Learning Through Processing: Teaching and Researching with Queer and Social Justice Pedagogies

Sharing findings from a post-critical ethnography on a middle school course, I demonstrate that queer pedagogy in tandem with social justice pedagogy gives students freedom over their own learning, resulting in conceptual learning gains. The course was interdisciplinary, and students engaged in critical literacy and critical mathematics practices to explore social justice topics such as racism in the prison system and same-sex marriage. Understanding student learning as “processing,” I detail three of its elements: dialogue, reflection, and engaged play. Implications for teaching and research are considered, and I also share how my positionality as a teacher and queer scholar affected the study and analysis.