Special Issue On Queer Educators And Queer Student Teachers

William DeJean, Guest Editor

Macquarie University

Sydney, Australia

Jeff Sapp, Guest Editor

California State University Dominguez Hills

USA

    Volume 45, Number 4 of The Teacher Educator was created to bring attention to queer identities in the field of teacher education.  From our vantage point, this special themed edition is important, as much has been written about the lived experience of queer teachers working in K-12 settings, yet not enough has been written about queer teacher educators or queer preservice teachers.  The articles in this issue address this silence.

    As guest editors of this special issue, we come to define queerness as the location where gender and sexualities meet, and use the term queer to represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities.

    To make visible this often invisible space, we have brought together a diverse range of researcher identities who find themselves questioning, reflecting, researching, and negotiating queer identities while thinking about the identities of their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender preservice teachers.

    As the poet Adrienne rich suggested,

        “When those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality choose not

        to see you or hear you…when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes

        the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you

        looked in the mirror and saw nothing.  It takes some strength of soul - and not just 

        individual strength but collective understanding - to resist this void, this non-being, 

        into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard” (p. 199).

    The researchers in this special, themed issue of The Teacher Educator resist the invisibility of queer-positive models of teacher educators and bring their collective strength and understanding to reveal the struggles and triumphs of entering the teaching profession while negotiating sexual orientation.

Reference

Rich, A. C.  (1986).  Blood, bread, and poetry:  Selected prose, 1979-1985.  New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Co.