Overview
A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling offers a startling and original critique of unexamined assumptions and liberal notions about sexuality and education in the United States. 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, Eric Rofes presents a compelling argument for the creation of a second generation of activism focused on queers, schools, and education.
Professional Reviews
" A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling challenges all the cant and cliché swirling around the lives of those who 'opt to be otherwise,' living outside and beyond the hetero/patriarchal paradigm. Eric Rofes upends the dogmatic dominant narrative of childhood innocence and its contemporary twin, childhood trauma, exploring the possibility of childhood as much more complex, dynamic, propulsive, conflicted, contradictory, and contested. This revolutionary book will change the way you look at childhood, sexuality, and yourself."
-- William Ayers, educational theorist, author, and distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago
" A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling reflects the unsurpassed wisdom that the restlessly brilliant Rofes has acquired through his long and multifaceted career. In this highly provocative book, he challenges us to rethink at the most fundamental level what we believe about youth, power, and sexuality."
-- Jackie M. Blount, Iowa State University
"Woven with rich personal accounts, and mingled with feminist, queer and educational theory, this book is readable, intense, and original."
-- Myers Book Commentary
"Up front and out front again! Educator, gay liberationist, and HIV/AIDS activist Eric Rofes challenges our assumptions about childhood, teaching, and learning in this excellent book. Whether deconstructing anti-homophobic curricululum in classrooms, HIV/AIDS prevention in the community, or graduate programs in education, Rofes is both provocative and surprising, angry and celebratory, hopeful and visionary. This book is essential reading for progressive educators and activists who want to create an effective agenda for the difficult years to come."
-- Jonathan Silin, Bank College of Education