Queer youth and critical sexuality education pedagogies within networked publics: implications for school-based practice

Abstract

There is a body of international literature demonstrating queer young people’s dissatisfaction with their school-based sexuality education. Seeking relevant information and social support, queer young people frequently report turning to the internet. Though this is well-documented in the literature, little research has specifically examined young people’s embeddedness in social media sites – or networked publics – as a legitimate form of sexuality education pedagogy. Drawing on narrative data on the sexuality education experiences of trans, non-binary and gender diverse Australians aged 18–26, this article uses the perspectives of Paulo Freire and bell hooks to theorise and compare the sexuality education pedagogies in the classroom and within queer networked publics. While school-based approaches are often limited to banking pedagogies that communicate prescriptive and normative ‘facts’ about sex, gender and health, online pedagogies represent a much greater potential for peer teaching and learning that is comprehensive, queer-affirming, and arguably impossible to replicate at school. This paper teases out the implications of this argument for school-based sexuality education pedagogies that grapple with expectations to be comprehensive in addressing diversity and digital literacy, and it maps out possibilities for formal and informal sexuality education to complement each other in a more holistic way.

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