My MA thesis project “Queering as a critical imagination: Educators envisioning queering schools praxis through critical participatory action research” involved working with a group of nine activist minded 2SLGBTQIA+ and ally-identified educators (classroom teachers, educational support workers, community educators etc.). We formed a research and community based collective in so-called Victoria BC on Lekwungen territories. 

Research Question:

This research was concerned with answering the following broad research question …

What does queering schools mean to a group of activist minded educators?

Methodology

The study was informed by critical participatory action research traditions, but was not classic CPAR. I used interviews, focus group meetings, and journals as data sources. Members of the collective were participants and co-researchers and some actively partook at various stages of the research, analysis, and representation.

This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and received approval from UVic’s Human Ethics Research Board and the Greater Victoria School District. The project was supervised by Dr. Kathy Sanford.