Ni grunnsteiner for undervisning om kjønn og kjønnsidentitet. Et bidrag til etablering av trygge rom for meningsmangfold

Abstract

This paper presents nine foundation stones for teaching about sex, gender and gender identity, proposed by the author as a basis for pragmatic consensus on how these issues should be addressed in Norwegian public schools. Initially integrated into a pedagogical design for Religion and Worldview Education teacher candidates, the foundation stones were subsequently refined through iterative feedback from a wide range of school actors and stakeholders. Following an exposition of these developmental stages, the paper will discuss the foundation stones in relation to norm-critical pedagogy, as it is presented and employed by two influential Norwegian teacher educators. Considerable alignments exist between their norm-critical approach and the foundation stones. A notable divergence, however, regards the role of disagreement in learning about gender issues. While the foundation stones explicitly promote student engagement with a wide range of perspectives and understandings, the norm-critical approaches in question imposes significant limitations on binary understandings’ access to the classroom. Although these limitations rest on vital concerns to safeguard transgender or gender questioning students, they risk obscuring critical distinctions within gender conservative viewpoints. To address this issue without jeopardizing the well-being of vulnerable students, the author recommends, firstly, to amplify teachers’ responsibility to ensure student safety through context-sensitive adjustments of how a given class should interact with the diversity of viewpoints. Secondly, to incorporate a lived perspective on norms into norm-critical approaches. This will enable students to critically and emphatically explore the diversity of norms arising from the ways humans navigate and apply norms in specific situations and in relation to other norms.