Flaunt It!: Queers Organizing for Public Education and Justice(340 Counterpoints)

This groundbreaking book provides examples of on-the-ground organizing and academic activism, drawing attention to the militarization of public schools, the erasure of queer lives at private institutions with anti-gay «lifestyle» statements, and the failure of professional educational organizations to act for social justice. Flaunt It! offers a constructive and timely analysis of the local, felt impact of neoliberal policies on the lives of those most marginal in schools and in communities.

About the Author :
The Authors: Therese Quinn teaches art education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She sits on the Local School Council of Nicholas Senn High School, is a founding member of Teachers Against Militarized Education (TAME), serves on the advisory board of AERA Chicago, and blogs about urban public (art) education at The Other Eye (http://therese-othereye.blogspot.com). Erica R. Meiners, a Professor of Education and Women’s Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, is the author of Right to be Hostile: Schools, Prisons and the Making of Public Enemies (2007). She participates in a number of local educational justice projects, including teaching and coordinating a high school for formerly incarcerated men and women.

Review :
«This book disrupts one of the great silences in education. From the recruitment of army privates, to the privatization of schools, to the norming of teacher training, Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners show how the ‘straightening’ of our students has been central to the hidden curriculum of school reform; and how fear of the queer and fear of the racial are intimate partners in the systematic violation of public bodies. We who are concerned with in/justice must read this book.» (K. Wayne Yang, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego) «Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners, engaged educators, encourage us to see no separation between scholarship and activism, our professions and our politics. They press us to re-consider what we do, and what really matters in our work and in the world.» (Annette Henry, Professor of Education, University of Washington, Tacoma) «This book breaks boundaries and situates itself between the tensions of scholarly words and active resistance to oppression. The language is articulate, the ideas compelling, and the authors take the reader through a decisive anatomy of educational activism, dissecting each issue, demanding solutions. It is a book about social justice, but it is also about tough subjects, about gutsy responses, and an unqualified urge to change the educational world.» (Didi Khayatt, Professor, Faculty of Education, York University) «The authors combine powerful reports of their interventions against educational privatization, militarization, and anti-queer organizations in U.S. schools with an unflinching analysis of how queer theory and ‘attitude’ can push back at normalized social conceptions of all sorts. This is a vital piece of practical, yet scholarly work.» (Jean Anyon, Author, ‘Theory and Empirical Research: Toward Critical Social Explanation’)