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Navigating gender and sexuality in the classroom,

As teacher training in gender and sexuality education remains variable and sometimes lacking in Western countries, teacher educators, teacher candidates, and current teachers may be searching for additional training on this increasingly important topic. This book offers a detailed account of McEntarfer’s research study on a teaching education course for gender and sexuality that she taught to master’s degree–level students in 2011 as well as a thorough and engaging resource for those looking to incorporate these conversations in their classrooms. Although it is never explicitly stated, the course and research project took place in the United States. McEntarfer offers us a glimpse into this education course and allows us to learn together with the students described in the book. She provides the reader with useful methods to broach gender and sexuality topics in the classroom and makes the case for narrative writing as both a research tool and a pedagogy. Resources in gender and sexuality education range from conservative approaches based on morality and abstinence to radical approaches that attempt to disrupt society’s normative discourses (Jones, 2011). While McEntarfer discusses the ways in which queer theory, positioning theory, and sociocultural theory inform her views on teacher education, this book can also be seen as a postmodern and more radical resource in gender and sexuality education in that it encourages the self-reflexive deconstruction and co-construction of gender and sexuality positions (Jones, 2011). More specifically, under the umbrella of postmodernism, this resource draws on poststructuralist discourse in that it specifically deconstructs and exposes hegemonic binaries in our society related to gender and sexuality (Jones, 2011). Consequently, this book is less focused on teaching the conservative narrative on dominant sexualities or teaching sexuality skills that are typically included in comprehensive sexuality education. Instead, McEntarfer focuses on understanding the theoretical underpinnings of gender and sexuality experiences and how they can inform sexuality educators. Apart from the introduction and conclusion chapters, each chapter of the book is themed on a specific area of gender and sexuality education: heteronormativity, cisnormativity, religion and sexuality, queered teaching, and teacher agency within school constraints (chapters 3–7). In each of these chapters, McEntarfer provides a description of the literature on the topic, details of her students’ class discussions, and excerpts from her students’ written assignments, all the while weaving in her own reflexivity throughout the pages.

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