A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling: Status Quo or Status Queer? (Curriculum, Cultures, and

by Eric Rofes

A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling: Status Quo or Status Queer? offers a startling and original critique of unexamined assumptions and liberal notions about sexuality and education in the United States. Professor and long-time community activist Eric Rofes argues that liberal approaches to gay issues and public schooling are inherently doomed to fail and that a radical approach is needed that addresses core issues of power in education in a meaningful way. Tackling issues ranging from anti-gay harassment in school to children's literature on gay themes, gender performances of teachers to HIV education, graduate school programs in education to gay men's sexual cultures, Rofes presents a compelling argument for the creation of a second generation of activism focused on queers, schools, and education, one that truly empowers young people and educators and one that has the potential to truly transform power relations in our nation.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Eric Rofes was a gay activist, educator, and author. He was a director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in the 1980s. In 1989, he became executive director of the Shanti Project, a nonprofit AIDS service organization. He was a professor of Education at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and served on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He wrote or edited twelve books. One of his last projects was co-creating "Gay Men's Health Leadership Academies" to combat what he saw as a "pathology-focused understanding of gay men" in safe-sex education.