Learning to Be: A Narrative Inquiry into the Identity Making and Curriculum Making of Individuals Positioned by Dominant Stories of Gender and Sexuality

Abstract

This narrative inquiry explores the composition of diverse stories to live by, a narrative conception of identity (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999), of four participants positioned by social and familial understandings of gender and sexuality. The research, conducted over an 18-month period, told of multiple and diverse stories around gender and sexuality and the shaping influences of relationships and context for educative experience (Dewey, 1938/1997). Drawing on a view of curriculum as a course of life (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992), this inquiry sought to better understand the complexities of identity making in the process of curriculum making (Schwab, 1969). Research literature on individuals positioned differently by understandings of gender and sexuality in schools are bounded by simplex categorical understandings of gender and sexuality and are focused on the negative experiences and consequences for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) youth in heteronormative contexts. However, these studies have provided little understanding for the complexities of diverse identities around gender and sexuality and the varied experiences that lead to the composition of diverse identities around gender and sexuality. Through the inquiry, several narrative threads emerged; diverse stories to live by around gender and sexuality are: (a) complex, multiple, and diverse; (b) negotiated through social dominant stories of gender and sexuality; (c) shaped by context; (d) negotiated through relationship; and (e) interwoven and nested with the stories of others.