Oral Presentation Institute of Australian Geographers & The New Zealand Geographical Society Conference 2014

Sexual Geographies of Schooling: The Bike Shed and Other Spaces of Sexuality (14387)

Louisa Allen

This paper asks, how do apparently mundane spatial and material schooling arrangements constitute particular sexual meanings and identities for students? It is concerned with extending existing understandings about the role of schools as sexualising agencies. That is, as spaces in which meanings about sexuality are constituted and circulated on a daily basis through a plethora of schooling processes and practices (Kehily, 2002). This exploration seeks to uncover previously undisturbed spatial and material dimensions of schooling with regards to sexualities and their implication for how young people learn about sexualities at school. Findings are drawn from a New Zealand-based study in two secondary schools in the North Island. A visual methodology was employed to capture schooling places students identify as constitutive of sexual meanings and identities. How students’ embodied sexual practices negotiated and contested these spatial/material configurations will also be investigated. Through this analysis the paper will make a theoretical contribution to an understanding of space as an in process materiality. It will be concluded that the spatial and material arrangements of schooling contribute to a larger schooling project concerned with muting and regulating young people’s sexual subjectivities.