No homo: Reactions to the interruption of heteronormativity on a youth and community work course

Abstract

Based on a three year self- study (S-STEP) into interrupting heteronormativity on youth and community work courses at a higher education institution, this article explores the reaction to the interruption of heteronormativity on youth and community work courses in a range of HEI institutions. Reactions were nuanced and contextual but concurred with existing literature that notes heteronormativity’s pervasiveness and invisibility, that sexuality can be embedded in unsuspected parts of the curriculum; and with the importance of considering students’ experience of homophobia inside and outside the classroom. We encountered strategies of contested engagement, strategic adjustment, avoidance and retreat that represented middle positions between homophobia and acceptance, but were no simple continuum as there was a concurrent intersecting spectrum between fractured and meta reflexives. Using Orne (2013) and Black (2012) schema we also encountered varieties of double and single consciousness, and indeed displaced double consciousnesses.