This article was downloaded by: [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile]

On: 21 August 2015, At: 13:57

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG

International Journal of Inclusive

Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
[Link]

Schooling sexualities and gendered

bodies. Experiences of LGBT students
in Icelandic upper secondary schools
a b
Jón Ingvar Kjaran & Guðrún Kristinsdóttir
a
Educational Research Institute, University of Iceland, School of
Education, Reykjavík, Iceland
b
University of Iceland, School of Education, Reykjavík, Iceland
Published online: 18 Mar 2015.

Click for updates

To cite this article: Jón Ingvar Kjaran & Guðrún Kristinsdóttir (2015) Schooling sexualities and
gendered bodies. Experiences of LGBT students in Icelandic upper secondary schools, International
Journal of Inclusive Education, 19:9, 978-993, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2015.1019375

To link to this article: [Link]

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
 Conditions of access and use can be found at [Link]
and-conditions
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015
 International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2015
Vol. 19, No. 9, 978– 993, [Link]

Schooling sexualities and gendered bodies. Experiences of LGBT

students in Icelandic upper secondary schools
∗
Jón Ingvar Kjarana and Guðrún Kristinsdóttirb
a
Educational Research Institute, University of Iceland, School of Education, Reykjavı́k,
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Iceland; bUniversity of Iceland, School of Education, Reykjavı́k, Iceland

(Received 14 September 2014; accepted 23 January 2015)

In this paper, we study how Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people
(LGBT) students in Icelandic upper secondary schools interpret their experience
of heteronormative environment and how they respond to it. The aim is to
explore how sexualities and gendered bodies are constructed through ‘schooling’.
The article draws on interview data with seven LGBT students who attended five
different upper secondary schools. We also use visual data collected during
fieldwork at one upper secondary school and exemplify the results with a poster
and a digitalised short-film, produced by the students, to substantiate what
participants told us in the interviews. All of the students experienced
heteronormative discourse and lack of respect and indicated that they did not feel
fully accepted in school. Upon entering the classroom, the visibility of LGBTs
and discussion about different performances of gender and sexuality seem to
disappear, whether in terms of textbooks, course content, teaching practices and
school environment. Furthermore, LGBTs and those who do not conform to the
hegemonic performances of gender are often constructed as deviations from the
norm, strange, and even depicted as the abjected other. This applies in particular
to the informal school, which embraces the traditions, culture and social
interactions among students and teachers. This othering occurs, despite relatively
positive attitudes towards LGBT people in Icelandic society in general. The
results signify a gap between policy and practice as regards the positioning of
LBGT students, which affects their schooling and well-being.
Keywords: LGBT students; experience; heteronormativity; upper secondary
school; transgender youth; transphobia

Introduction
Ferfolja (2007) has pointed out in her research about school cultures in Australia how
institutional processes, policing and silencing non-heterosexuality, enabled homopho-
bia and heterosexist ideology to thrive. This occurred despite apparent broader societal
acceptance of non-heterosexuality, along with legislation that condemns anti-homosex-
ual discrimination in education (Ferfolja 2007). This has also been the case in Iceland,
where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (LGBT) people have the same
legal rights to partnership, adoption and artificial insemination as heterosexuals
(Þorvaldsdóttir 2007; Rydström 2011; The Single Marriage Act no. 65/2010). The
new national curricula state that schools should base their practice on ‘tolerance,

∗
Corresponding author. Email: jik1@[Link]

# 2015 Taylor & Francis

 International Journal of Inclusive Education 979

equality, democratic collaboration and responsibility’ (Ministry of Education, Science,

and Culture 2011a, 2011b). Moreover, in terms of educational policy, the emphasis on
sexuality and gender was strengthened in the new national curricula. Accordingly, edu-
cational workers and teachers are encouraged to incorporate into all subjects discussion
about equality, whether based on gender, sexuality, ethnicity or disability. However, in
practice, this has so far rarely been achieved, as many teachers lack knowledge and
training in addressing gender and sexuality in their work (Guðbjörnsdóttir and Lárus-
dóttir 2012).
However, as Ferfolja (2007) has pointed out, there can be discrepancies between a
progressive society and conservative schools in respect to LGBT issues. Thus, the equal
rights approach, reflected in the aforementioned policy, is important, but when it comes
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

to schools, its gains are mainly to remove direct discrimination and formal hindrances.
It has much less ability to deal with hidden barriers, attitudes and heteronormativity,
which are rooted in institutional processes of many schools. Heteronormativity refers
to a discourse that normalises heterosexuality and hegemonic gender performances,
assuming that everybody is heterosexual (see Warner 1991; Atkinson and DePalma
2010). In schools, the ‘power of heterosexuality’, when it operates as a norm,
renders LGBT students as abnormal and subjected to intense scrutiny and control
(see Rasmussen 2006; Hansen 2007; Concannon 2008; LeFrancois 2013).
Upon entering the classroom, the visibility of LGBTs and discussion about different
performances of gender and sexuality seem to disappear, whether in terms of textbooks,
course content, teaching practices and school environment. LGBTs and those who do
not conform to the hegemonic performances of gender or sexuality are often con-
structed as deviations from the norm and strange, and even depicted as ‘abjected’
others (Epstein 1997; Martino 1999, 2000; Lipkin 2004; Pascoe 2007; Kjaran and
Jóhannesson 2013; Mayo 2013). This applies particularly to the informal school,
which embraces the traditions, culture and social interactions among students and tea-
chers (Gordon, Holland, and Lahelma 2000; Kjaran and Jóhannesson 2013).
This article focuses on the experience of LGBT students in Icelandic upper second-
ary schools. Our study is a contribution to the growing body of knowledge of various
manifestations of heteronormativity and homophobia within schools worldwide (see
Epstein and Johnson 1998; Martino 2000; Rasmussen 2006; Ferfolja 2007; Röthing
2008). The article is based on a case study from a small Nordic country, which
during the last three decades has undergone some positive changes in respect to
LGBT rights and societal attitudes towards non-heterosexuality. Our objectives are
both practical and informative, which we attain by seeking answers to the following
research question: How are sexualities and gendered bodies constructed through
‘schooling’ within the upper secondary school? Schooling applies here both to the
informal and to the formal school.

Theoretical framework
Our work is rooted in queer and feminist theory (Walby 1990; Warner 1991; Seidman
1996, 2009; Skeggs 1997) and particularly in the work of Butler (1990, 1993) and Fou-
cault (1979, 1990).
According to Foucault, individuals exercise power in all social interactions and it is
either dominating or resisting. Foucauldian theories highlight disciplinary power,
which creates docile and obeying bodies, and makes individuals regulate their behav-
iour and performance in order to conform to dominant norms (Foucault 1990; Lynch
 980 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

2011). This specific kind of power is directed at the individual; it functions at the micro-
level, directed at the body and its subjection to the dominant discourse (Foucault 1979,
1990). Disciplinary power is internalised by individuals, similarly as the subject is con-
stantly reminded of his or her possible abjection. In that sense, disciplinary power is
‘panoptic’, it is everywhere and nowhere and it polices our behaviour and performance.
An example of the intersection of the Foucauldian ‘panopticonic regime of surveil-
lance’ (Martino 2006) and abjection is how the image of effeminate gay man operates
as a threat and a constant reminder of the abject other for the ‘straight-acting gay’.
Martino has argued that it is the ‘ . . . avoidance of being subjected to the gaze of
straight society, and, hence, made the object of that normalizing practice that appears
to motivate this gay man’s compulsion to assimilate and to become invisible as a
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

gay male subject’ (Martino 2006, 42). We noticed these same discursive themes in
our participants’ stories, not wanting to be objectified or subjected to the panoptic
gaze of the straight society.
Foucault (1979, 1990) highlights in his work the effects of regulatory regimes,
which influenced Butler in her writings about the performativity of gender and abjected
bodies. Butler has emphasised how the dominant discourse of gender and sexuality sub-
jectifies individuals (Butler 1990). She has discussed the performativity of gender,
which relies upon the continuous reiteration of particular norms (Butler 1990). Thus,
for individuals to become legitimate subjects, they must perform their gender and sexu-
ality in accordance to the dominant discourse of heteronormativity. Those individuals
who do not do this in accordance to the ‘regulatory norms’ are denied the status of sub-
jects and become abjects (Butler 1993). Moreover, the subject is according to Butler
constructed ‘ . . . through the force of exclusion and abjection’ (Butler 1993, 3). Argu-
ably, the abject resides inside the subject, a constant reminder of the continuous need to
comply with the heteronorm. For example, the construction of hetero-masculinity or
hetero-femininity is then dependent upon the iteration of the abject, ‘that site of
dreaded identification’ (Butler 1993, 3).
In our analysis, we draw on the works of Butler and Foucault in order to understand
the intersection of gender and sexuality in the formation of a ‘normative’ or a ‘deviant’
(abjected) subject (Wilton 1996). In order to draw attention to non-discursive elements
at play in how certain knowledge –power relations are enacted or mobilised, we focus
on the embodied experiences of our participants, when interpreting and analysing the
interview data, and in particular as regards questions of categorisations of sexuality
and bodies. By doing that, we want to address our concern about signifying bodies
in relation to the question of the materiality and embodiment of (hetero)norms. In
other words, how are embodied subjectivities constructed through various institutional
processes and how do they experience the regulatory effects of heteronormativity? In
Bodies that Matter, Butler discusses the link between materiality and discursivity
and how embodiment is enacted through ‘ . . . a process whereby regulatory norms
materialize “sex” [and in fact the normative body] and achieve this materialization
through a forcible reiteration of those norms’ (Butler 1993, 2).
Experience is a broad term which can refer to any sensation, feeling or knowledge
acquisition that results from participation in daily activities (Gupta and Vajic 2000).
Experience comes into being within a particular social context. Thus, it needs to be
studied and interpreted in relation to individual activities and cannot be based entirely
on accounts of the subjects under study (Silverman 2004, 2010). Furthermore, in order
to understand individual experience(s), one needs to take a holistic approach. In
addition, it relates to the past but it is interpreted and viewed through the prism of
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 981

the present (Kong, Mahoney, and Plummer 2001). Our analytical focus is not only on
the experience itself, but also on its embodiment and of how ‘regulatory norms’ influ-
ence its enactment. It is not possible to gain direct access to individual experience, as
subjects attach multiple meanings to both their situation and embodied activities
(Gubrium 1997; Silverman 2010).

Method and settings

Participants and data
The research presented in this article is a part of a larger ethnographic study on the con-
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

struction of sexuality and gender in Icelandic upper secondary schools. The study
design is a mixture of extended fieldwork at two upper secondary schools and 20 inter-
views with LGBT students at different upper secondary schools. The data used when
writing this article consist of seven semi-structured interviews with LGBT students
from five different schools (see Table 1) and visual data collected during fieldwork
at a rather traditional upper secondary school in Reykjavı́k, given the pseudonym
Circle. The visual data are photographs taken at the field and digitalised short-films pro-
duced by the students and were posted on the website of the student’s union. The data
were collected by the first author, who self-identifies as gay and was during the field-
work teaching at one of the upper secondary schools under study. The second author is
a female professor who has been involved in the Icelandic feminist movement and in
her academic work researched and advocated the rights of women and minority
groups in Iceland and earlier in Sweden. The participants were selected purposively
and were between 18 and 19 years old when the interviews took place. They were
either accessed through local LGBT youth support group or by snowballing, and had
all attended an upper secondary school for at least two years.1
The interviews were semi-structured. They were conducted and transcribed verba-
tim by the first author, who established connections with the participants and gained
their confidence, by assuring them that the recordings would not be used by any
other than the researchers. He met each of them at least once for 90 min. Before an
interview started, all the participants gave their informed consent and chose their pseu-
donyms, which are used in this paper. All locations or schools mentioned in this
paper were also given pseudonyms to secure anonymity. Observations were used to
collect visual data and to enable the researcher to connect to stories and descriptions

Table 1. Participants of the research.

Gender Sexual/gender
Pseudonym Age identity identity School Location
Gunnar 19 Male Gay Circle Reykjavı́k
Tom 19 Male Gay Garden Reykjavı́k
Dani 18 Female Bisexual Hilly Reykjavı́k
Ásta 18 Female Lesbian Pond Reykjavı́k
Bjarnheiður 19 Female Transgender Forest/Field Outside of
(MTF) Reykjavı́k
Gabriel 19 Male Gay Circle Reykjavı́k
Hreinn 19 Male Gay Circle Reykjavı́k
 982 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

given in the interviews. Wolcott (2005) defines fieldwork as the form of inquiry that
requires a researcher to be immersed personally in the ongoing social activities of
some individual or group. The fieldwork, which lasted for six months, enabled the
researcher to study school settings and students’ actions in the public sphere of the
school’s at first hand.
In this study, activities and bodily experiences are seen as reflected in the subjects’
own accounts and importantly also in their actions (Silverman 2004, 2010). The partici-
pants were asked to talk about their school experience(s), their interaction with faculty
members, and fellow students, as well as the school environment. The purpose was to
find out how the participants experienced their school setting, focusing on bodily
experience, policing of gender and sexuality within the heteronormative culture of
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

schools, and how our participants tried to resist and create a ‘queer’ space. Thereby,
we wanted to draw attention to the intersection of discursive and material embodiment
in everyday life of our participants, as discussed in the previous section. We interpreted
their stories in relation to how and whether they experienced their school environment
as heteronormative. We also tried to elicit the meaning and interpretation they them-
selves expressed in the interview and how they resisted their heteronormative school
environment

Thematic and discourse analysis

The interview data were divided into themes. Thematic analysis formed the analytical
framework of the study (Flick 2006). This approach is a useful method because it is not
embedded in any pre-existing theoretical framework (Braun and Clarke 2006). Themes
were mainly identified based on repetition (Ryan and Bernard 2003). Furthermore, the
data were analysed by applying key heuristic concepts, such as heteronormativity,
binary construction (binaries), sexism and the theoretical framework of Butler and Fou-
cault, discussed in the previous section. Two main themes were deduced from the data
(Flick 2006): lack of acceptance and respect, and the gendered body, identity and
environment. These themes were seen as indicative of our participants’ experience of
heteronormative school spaces and of how the ‘regulatory norms’ sometimes render
LGBT students as ‘abjected other’.
We also used critical discourse analysis when analysing the data, both the visual and
the interview data. We draw here on Butler (1993) and other poststructuralists (see Fair-
clough 2001), who emphasise that the discursive and the material are embodied and
interconnected in everyday life, activities and practices. Hence, abjection and embodied
experience are discursive processes, but at the same time rooted in a material reality.
The visual data were selected purposively from a larger data set collected during field-
work. They consisted of two photos of posters, and a two minutes long sketch, from a
digitalised short-film, produced by the students themselves. We analysed the data as
single images or digital sketches and the aim was to exemplify how the intersection
of gender and sexuality was manifested visually in the field and how the images
reinforced heteronormativity and sustained ideologies of hegemonic gender perform-
ances, particularly of masculinity (Jewitt 2014; Van Leeuwen and Jewitt 2001).
Being a cultural phenomenon within that particular field, we viewed the visual data
as communication or text (see Eco 1976). Furthermore, we relied on contextual infor-
mation from interviews. We also focused on the enacted social practices in which the
images were used to construct performances and appearances in respect to gender and
sexuality. Thereby we emphasise that a meaning is never to be found in the image or
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 983

visual data (text) itself, but rather in its production, distribution and discourse (Thurlow
and Aiello 2007).

‘You are not accepted as you are’

All of our participants experienced their school environment as heteronormative. This
was manifested in lack of acceptance of or disrespect of their sexual or gender identity,
which was indicated by fellow students and/or teachers in either a subtle and indirect
way or more openly and directly. The subtle way of expressing this heteronormative
ideology was felt by our participants as a generally agreed upon discourse about
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

gender and sexuality at their schools. Ásta exemplifies:

When you are a lesbian then there is the tendency to take you down, you are not a part of
the environment, not accepted as you are.

Ásta was quite critical and used a strong expression, such as ‘taking you down’, stres-
sing how she experienced the local, social and cultural environment as hostile and het-
eronormative. Furthermore, she told us how it refused to accept lesbian students as real
and a part of the school culture.
Her critical stance was revealed further when she described an embodied
experience:

From boys particularly, I have experienced harassment, even on the streets. I have also
heard from other lesbians that they are more harassed by their environment than, for
example, gay boys. I find that there is somehow less respect for lesbians; they are pre-
sumed to be less real. It is as if people cannot accept the fact that a relationship is a
real one if there is no man involved and assume that lesbian sex is not real sex at all.

In our talks, Ásta narrated her experience of heterosexism mostly indirectly (not
overtly), and revealed her critical stance in a feminist tone. In the earlier quote, for
example, she criticised the oppressive nature of patriarchy, especially for lesbians.
Dani described a similar experience in concrete terms. As her narrative was more
specific, her embodied experience appeared more strongly:

I once turned in a German assignment where we were supposed to tell what we had been
doing during the weekend. I wrote that I had gone on a date with a girl. I used some girl
name for her and female pronouns. However, when I got the assignment back, my German
teacher had changed all of this into a male form. I went to her after the class and told her
that these had not been mistakes. She realized quite quickly that she had unwittingly
expressed some prejudice.

The German teacher assumed that Dani was heterosexual and that her story of her
weekend date with a girl entailed grammatical failures (Kjaran and Jóhannesson
2013). By doing that, the teacher was unwittingly reproducing the discourse of ‘pre-
sumed heterosexuality’ (Epstein and Johnson 1994), assuming that all or most students
are heterosexual. Dani, on other hand, experienced this incident as a lack of acceptance
and respect. She also showed resistance to the heteronormative discourse by confront-
ing her teacher and telling that she, not her, had made the ‘grammatical’ mistakes.
Bjarnheiður, who identified as transgender, male to female, also experienced lack of
respect for her identity, especially in relation to her gender and biological sex. She told
us that in her interactions with the school environment and fellow students, she was
 984 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

sometimes not regarded as a woman, which she felt was important for her self-image. In
the following, she expresses her views about this:

I find it very important that people regard me as a woman . . . It is important that people
think of me as a woman and use appropriate pronouns. It is very offending when someone
is talking about you using male pronouns. You just feel awkward and if I notice that
someone is doing this repeatedly then I let him know, I get a bit angry.

Bjarnheiður narrated an embodied experience of how fellow students questioned her

gender identity because her body and appearance did not fully conform to the hegemo-
nic discourse of the ‘ideal’ female body. She felt that it was important to ‘pass’ as a real
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

woman. Thus, being conscious about the importance of ‘passing’, Bjarnheiður took
good care of her appearance and behaviour and tried to conform to the hegemonic dis-
course of femininity. She said that her fellow students were obsessed when it came to
looks and beauty. Thus, she was conscious of the binary discourse of gender perform-
ances and its regulatory or policing effects, which determined what the ideal gendered
body should look like, and she felt the pressure to embrace certain normative
expressions of gender:

You must have a particular look so people will take you as a transgender woman; accept
you as a real woman in a way. I had to change my behaviour, behave in certain ways, to fit
in, not be regarded differently. Actually, I am quite a boy inside me, not always behaving
in feminine ways. I was brought up on a farm and used to help my parents with the farm
work . . . . I am also active in all kinds of sports, playing football and taking part in paint-
ball. This kind of behaviour is somehow not expected of me. I feel that people cannot
grasp it, making them a bit confused.

Bjarnheiður claims that in order to have any possibility of being accepted by her fellow
students as a woman, she needed to succumb to the disciplinary power of feminine be-
haviour and looks, in order to ‘materialise’ her sex/gender (Butler 1993). She was
aware of the constant panoptic gaze of her fellow students, regulating the behaviour
of gendered bodies, particularly those of females (Foucault 1979; Butler 1993).
This discourse of the gendered body, with strong emphasis on the binary construc-
tion of gender, was also noticed during fieldwork at Circle. There, the panoptic gaze
was overall present, policing and influencing the behaviour of both female and male
students, particularly within the ‘informal school’. These informal processes were,
for example, incorporated in various posters designed and made by the students them-
selves, which covered the walls of the corridor advertising social events, such as parties
or sporting competitions.
Figure 1 displays a poster advertising the Busaball or the ball for the first-year stu-
dents, the first ball of the school year. It portrays six students dressed lavishly, drawing
particularly attention to the female models. The girls are positioned differently than the
male ones, stroking their hair or having hands on hips, thereby emphasising their body
and look. The poster featured in Figure 2 also stresses gender binaries and indirectly
indicates the heterosexual space of the dance, by portraying presumably heterosexual
pairs in their best clothes going to the ball together. Furthermore, the girl’s eyes are
directed towards the front, whereas the boy’s eyes are fixed on her breasts, indicating
or emphasising his desires. She is thereby both heterosexualised and objectified through
his gaze. This was also the understanding of the students themselves, particularly the
males, who told me that going to the Busaball was all about ‘getting lucky’,
meaning a successful date with a girl. Thus, this poster and other similar ones
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 985
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Figure 1. A poster advertising the Busaball.

noticed during the fieldwork strengthened the discourse of heteronormativity and the
hegemonic gender performances at Circle. Thus, posters served among others in a
panoptic sense to draw attention to how the first-year students internalised the values
of the heteronormative system (Foucault 1979).

Intersection of gendered bodies, sexualities and spaces

All the participants seemed to have experienced stigmatisation and homo/transphobia
from the local cultural/social environment. When the first theme indicates a general
pressure of conformity and lack of acceptance, it became clear that the male participants
seemed to have experienced this more overtly and felt more strongly the disciplinary
power of the heteronormative discourse than the females. This was particularly true
 986 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Figure 2. A poster advertising a mid-term ball.

as it intersected with their embodied experience of being queer and a man. These find-
ings are consistent with other studies that discuss difficulties facing men when they
come out of the closet, especially due to strong intersection of sexuality and masculinity
(see, e.g. Martino 2000; Kimmel 2005; Pascoe 2007). This also adheres to the under-
standing of the female participants, who mentioned that boys had more often difficulties
coming to terms with their sexuality and were more likely to have a rough time at
school. The confirmation of masculinity is a decisive factor in the disciplinary identi-
fication processes of young males, providing boys with the opportunity to express
their alliance to the hegemonic masculinity by othering boys who do not conform
fully to the behaviour or actions of a ‘real’ man, in terms of both sexuality and
gender performances (Epstein 1997; Martino 2000; Renold 2005; Pascoe 2007;
Nayak and Kehily 2008).
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 987

The disciplinary processes of masculinity and its accompanying dividing practices

find their clearest expressions in the men’s locker rooms and in sport. Tom experienced
this directly:

I went into the locker room and took a shower. I always go several minutes before the
others guys because I know that they feel a bit uncomfortable to be with me in the
shower-room. However, this time the PE-teacher finished the lesson earlier than usual,
and when I came out of the shower-room they were starting to enter the locker room. I
walked to the other end of the room where I had put my clothes. Then when I turned
around, I saw that all the boys were running out of the locker room. I felt terrible and
found this very hurtful. I know however that their reactions are because they do not
know better, they are ignorant.
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Tom described this incident in considerable detail. He mentioned that he felt awful
experiencing this kind of prejudice, reminding him perhaps of his experience of
being bullied in primary school. He also tried to explain the behaviour of his fellow
male students, by excusing their homophobic behaviour. Again, Tom did not wish to
be victimised, and by connecting this incident to plain ignorance, he was defending
his self. This is a strategy to accommodate one’s self within a heteronormative and
even hostile environment. Later in the interview, Tom told us that many of his
fellow male students tried to live up to the image or ideal of a particular form of hege-
monic masculinity. In light of that fact, the locker room incident can be put into a
context of the masculinity making or doing boy (Renold 2004).
Gabriel and Hreinn, identifying as gay, also mentioned that they sometimes felt it
difficult to deal with the space of the locker room. They felt that their fellow students
did not quite feel comfortable having them around, although they did not express this
overtly. All of them had in various degrees internalised the homophobic discourse of
their school environment. They tried to reduce their visibility in a similar way as
Tom, thus policing their behaviour and actions.
Gunnar also experienced difficulties adapting his sexual identity to the school
environment. Although he did not experience such hostility as Tom, he still found it
difficult to come to terms with his sexuality when attending school. He did that quite
late, at the end of his final year. He found his school environment heteronormative.
For example, he mentioned that his fellow students often talked about their private
life, asking him to share his intimate feelings and preferences. In addition, Gunnar
experienced heteronormative discourse in journals and newsletters, which were pub-
lished by the students at his school. This confirms further what was deduced from
the visual data during fieldwork:

Newsletters and journals published at our schools, which mainly tell about the school
gossip, usually only focus on heterosexual boys and girls, you know, depicting the
hottest freshmen, either boys or girls. In these publications, boys are looking at the
hottest girls, and the girls are only thinking about the hottest boys. There is no discussion
about whether a boy is thinking about another boy or finding him hot, or vice versa for
girls. The culture and all the discussion at our school are so focused around heterosexu-
ality, and it is always assumed that all the students are heterosexual.

As mentioned in the last section, intersection of gender and sexuality in the production
of social spaces was noticed in some of the visual data collected at Circle. There the
students, mostly the male ones, regularly made some digital sketches, ‘short-films’,
which were shown to the other students at least once a month on a big screen and
 988 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

then published on social media such as Facebook or YouTube. These ‘short-films’ were
very popular and watched by most students at Circle. Its content mostly revolved
around jokes about school issues and fellow students. The underlying tone (theme)
of these ‘short-films’ seem to have had the purpose of reproducing gender norms, nor-
mative bodies and heteronormativity through the discourse of othering within the social
space of the informal school. Furthermore, many of them had a sexist undertone and
sustained the discourse of sexualisation of both boys and girls. One sketch (Frame
1–4, Table 2) will now be described as it in our view demonstrates clearly how
gender and sexuality intersect in policing gender performances by reproducing and
citing the discourse of the abjected other. By depicting the queer body as ‘unintelligible’
and/or ‘unnatural’, this sketch serves the purpose of drawing a boundary between het-
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

eronormative bodies and the queer other. Thus, as Butler makes clear in Bodies that
Matter, the sketch draws attention to the mechanisms of denigration which lead
certain bodies to become devalued (Butler 1993). The storyline is quite simple. A pris-
oner, who is soon to be executed, is led before the king and his courtiers. The king asks
the prisoner if he has any last wish and he replies that he would like to have a blowjob
(Frame 1 and 2, Table 2). The king then appoints one of his courtiers to do the job, as he
is according to the king the ‘gayest’ looking among them. The king uses the Icelandic
word hommalegur, which in this context has a negative connotation and can mean
‘fairy’ or ‘faggot’. The appointed courtier protests and points to a guy close by, who
is shown as very flamboyant and presumably gay, wearing a mini-skirt and sucking a

Table 2. Frame 1 –4 from a digital sketch.

Frame 1 (The king and his courtiers. Frame 2 (The prisoner and the
The ‘gay-looking’ courier to the left.) executioner)

Frame 3 (The presumbaly gay guy Frame 4 (The shocking look of the ‘gay/
sucking a carrot) feminie’ looking courtier when he
has to obey the king’s order)
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 989

carrot, as if he is doing oral sex (Frame 2 and 3, Table 2). However, the king sticks to his
decision, and the courtier performs the job and thereby the sketch ends. Here it needs to
be noted that these sketches are very popular at Circle, premiered first at a big screen in
the main meeting hall, and then made available on YouTube. There they are viewed not
only by students at Circle, but also by students from other schools, some sketches even
getting 50–60 thousand views (see Sigurgeirsdóttir and Magnúsdóttir 2014). Thus, the
messages of these sketches get a large circulation. Teachers and other staff members at
Circle are not very much aware of what is published or produced by the students, par-
ticularly not when it comes to digital material or sketches such as those discussed here.
The school employs two teachers part-time, who help the students to edit and censor
publications at Circle. However, they do not have the time to review everything
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

written or published at school, and hence, some sketches, images or digital remarks
are not scrutinised given their discriminatory and homophobic intent.
The content of this short sketch draws in our view clearly on the hegemonic dis-
course of gender and sexuality in the construction of masculinity. First, it revolves
around the hierarchy of masculinities and policing of ‘correct’ performances of mascu-
linity. The king orders his subordinate to give the prisoner a blowjob because he finds
him to be gay-looking; in other words, being feminine or sissy (Sedgwick 1991;
Martino 1999). In order to protect his self and masculine identity, he then points to
the presumably gay person on the scene, who has the lowest position within the hier-
archy of masculinity, of being the ‘right man’ for the job. The king punishes the courtier
for being too gay-looking, indicating that he is frail and not fully accepted by his peers.
The punishment and the image portrayed of the presumably gay person serve as a
reminder for other young men of how to behave and act. Second, this sketch draws
on the discourse about the feminine gay stereotype and constructs the homosexual as
the abjected other in order to set the norm, ‘expel’ from the normative subject the
‘impurity’ of the queer other and indeed stigmatise any behaviour that deviates from
the heteronorm (see Foucault 1979; Butler 1993; Pascoe 2007).
Obviously, this sketch and many others in the short-films produced at Circle are all
about joke-making and do not have the overt purpose of policing gender and sexuality.
However, as already indicated, the subtexts draw on the discourse of gender and sexu-
ality, and unwittingly send out some signals, particularly to young boys on how to
behave, under the pretence of jokes (see Kehily and Nayak 1997; McRobbie 2009).
Sketches such as these used homophobic words and images of the gay stereotype, in
order to joke about the particular minority group and those boys who do not
conform to the hegemonic discourse of masculinity. Moreover, the heterosexualised
images (posters) of either boys or girls had the same purpose: to discipline the young
people independent of their gender in the way already pointed out (Figures 1 and 2).

Summary of findings and discussion

We set out to explore how sexualities and gendered bodies are constructed through
‘schooling’ within upper secondary schools in an Icelandic context. However, our
sample is limited, which is why the results cannot be generalised for the whole Icelan-
dic upper secondary school community. The participants in the study experienced a
split between their local social and cultural environments on the one hand and the
effects of their appearances, look, sexual or gender identity on the other hand, either
at school or in their daily activities. All participants interpreted their school culture
as heteronormative, although not always expressing it directly as such. These findings
 990 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

are consistent with other studies on heteronormativity in schools (see Epstein 1997;
Epstein and Mellor 2006; Pascoe 2007). This manifested itself in various ways,
either directly or indirectly.
The young people all encountered derogatory or negative talk, but there was a
difference in terms of gender and sexuality. The male participants experienced
stigma and disciplinary oppression, particularly in terms of policing hegemonic per-
formances of masculinity. The participants who identified as lesbian, bisexual or trans-
gender felt more clearly a lack of acceptance, either subtly or directly. In their view, the
hegemonic discourse of gender and sexuality did not include them fully. For example,
both Ásta and Dani felt that their same-sex relationship was not regarded as a real one,
at least not in the same sense as if they were heterosexual. This has been discussed
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

recurrently ever since Rich (1993) put forward the concept of compulsory heterosexu-
ality. According to her, lesbians often feel the oppressive nature of conforming to the
heterosexual norms, which emphasises male-centric views on sex and sexual relation-
ships (Valentine 1993; Richardson 2000). All the female participants experienced this
and voiced some protest. They stressed their right of an inclusion and tried to influence
the prevailing discourse. Some of our participants emphasised the role of heteronorma-
tive posters in schooling sexualities and gendered bodies within the informal school,
which the field observations further confirmed. This mapped out discriminatory
power structures within the informal school environment which our participants experi-
enced as heteronormative and unwelcoming.
Our conclusions are consistent with Ferfolja (2007) and confirm that heteronorma-
tivity, particularly within the informal school, prevails, in spite of the fact that discus-
sion on equality, sensitive to gender, sexuality, ethnicity or disability, should be
incorporated in all subjects (see Kjaran and Jóhannesson 2013). Hence, the equal
rights approach, reflected in an institutionally acknowledged policy framework focus-
ing on non-discrimination, has not managed to remove direct discrimination and formal
hindrances in respect to sexual or gender diversity. Hidden barriers, attitudes and het-
eronormativity that are deeply rooted in institutional processes and culture of schools
need to be addressed more. Primarily, teachers and those in authority have to be
aware of how their attitudes and social position can affect the schooling of gendered
bodies and sexualities. They along with support of all students can change the hetero-
normative culture of schools. This would make them more inclusive and welcoming to
all. Increased awareness and respect for diversity can hopefully diminish or, even
better, erase the ongoing policing of sexuality and gender in schooling. Such disar-
rangement would create stepping stones and eventually create a school environment
which benefits all students.

Note
1. Students attend upper secondary school from 16 to 20 years of age. It is not obligatory but a
prerequisite to be able to enrol into a university. This is why the term ‘freshman’ does not
apply here.

Notes on contributors
Jón Ingvar Kjaran, PhD, is a researcher/lecturer at the University of Iceland, School of Edu-
cation. His main fields include in education theory and policy, queer and gender studies
within education. He is currently working on a book on LGBTQ youth in Iceland, which will
be published at Palgrave Macmillan, in the book series Queer studies and Education.
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 991

Guðrún Kristinsdóttir, PhD, is a professor in educational studies at the University of Iceland and
an Associate Fellow at Centre of Lifelong Learning, University of Warvick in England. Her
main research area is conditions and well being of children and young people. The book,
Violence at home: Children’s perspectives’ (in Icelandic with English summaries) which
Kristinsdóttir edited was awarded the ‘Fjöruverðlaunin’, a women’s literature prize in 2015
and the award for outstanding academic work by ‘Hagþenkir’, the Association of Non-fiction
and Educational Writers in Iceland. Kristinsdóttir is on the board of the Centre for Childhood
at the School of Education, University of Iceland. She is the book review editor of the
journal Nordic Social Work Research.

ORCID
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Jón Ingvar Kjaran [Link]

References
Atkinson, E., and R. DePalma. 2010. “The Nature of Institutional Heteronormativity in Primary
Schools and Practice-based Responses.” Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (8): 1669 –
1676.
Braun, V., and V. Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative
Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77 – 101.
Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge.
Concannon, L. 2008. “Citizenship, Sexual Identity and Social Exclusion: Exploring Issues in
British and American Social Policy.” International Journal of Sociology and Social
Policy 28: 326– 339.
Eco, U. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics. London: Macmillan.
Epstein, D. 1997. “Boyz’ Own Stories: Masculinities and Sexualities in Schools.” Gender &
Education 9 (1): 105 – 116.
Epstein, D., and R. Johnson. 1994. “On the Straight and the Narrow: The Heterosexual
Presumption, Homophobias and Schools.” In Challenging Lesbian and Gay Inequalities
in Education, edited by D. Epstein, 197 –203. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Epstein, D., and R. Johnson. 1998. Schooling Sexualities. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Epstein, D., and D. J. Mellor. 2006. “Appropriate Behaviour? Sexualities, Schooling and
Heterogender.” In Handbook for Gender and Education, edited by C. Skelton, B. Francis,
and L. Smulyan, 378– 392. London: Taylor and Francis.
Fairclough, N. 2001. “The Discourse of New Labour: Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Discourse
as Data: A Guide for Analysis, edited by Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor, and Simeon
Yates, 229– 266. London: Sage.
Ferfolja, T. 2007. “Schooling Cultures: Institutionalizing Heteronormativity and Heterosexism.”
International Journal of Inclusive Education 11 (2): 147– 162.
Flick, U. 2006. An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. 1990. The History of Sexuality: Vol. 1. An introduction Translated by R. Hurley.
New York: Vintage.
Gordon, T., J. Holland, and E. Lahelma. 2000. Making Spaces. Citizenship and Difference in
Schools. London: Macmillan.
Gubrium, J. F. 1997. The New Language of Qualitative Methods. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Guðbjörnsdóttir, G., and Lárusdóttir. 2012. “Þotulið” og “setulið”: kynjajafnrétti ı́ kennaramenn-
tun.” Netla – Online Journal on Pedagogy and Education. [Link]
Gupta, S., and M. Vajic. 2000. “The Contextual and Dialectical Nature of Experiences.” In New
Service Development: Creating Memorable Experiences, edited by J. A. Fitzsimmons and
M. J. Fitzsimmons, 33 –52. London: Sage.
Hansen, A. L. 2007. “School-based Support for GLBT Students: A Review of Three Levels of
Research.” Psychology in Schools 44: 839 –848.
 992 J.I. Kjaran and G. Kristinsdóttir

Jewitt, C. 2014. “A Social Semiotic Analysis of Male Heterosexuality in Sexual Health

Resources: Three Case of Images.” International Journal of Social Research
Methodology 1 (4): 263– 279.
Kehily, M. J., and A. Nayak. 1997. ““Lads and Laughter”: Humor and the Production of
Heterosexual Hierarchies.” Gender and Education 9 (1): 69– 88.
Kimmel, M. 2005. Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. New York: State University New York Press.
Kjaran, J. I., and I. Á. Jóhannesson. 2013. “Manifestations of Heterosexism in Icelandic Upper
Secondary Schools and the Responses of LGBT Students.” Journal of LGBT Youth 10 (4):
351– 372.
Kong, T. S. K., D. Mahoney, and K. Plummer. 2001. “Queering the Interview.” In Handbook of
Interview Research: Context & Method, edited by J. A. Holstein and J. F. Gubrium, 239–
258. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
LeFrancois, B. 2013. “Queering Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: The Subversion
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

of Heteronormativity in Practice.” Children and Society 27: 1 – 12.

Lipkin, A., 2004. Beyond Diversity Day: A Q&A on Gay and Lesbian Issues in Schools.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Lynch, R. 2011. “Foucault’s Theory of Power.” In Michel Foucault. Key Concepts, edited by D.
Taylor, 13 –27. Durham: Acumen.
Martino, W. 1999. “‘Cool Boys’, ‘Party Animals’, ‘Squids’ and ‘Poofters’: Interrogating the
Dynamics and Politics of Adolescent Masculinities in School.” British Journal of
Sociology of Education 20 (2): 239– 263.
Martino, W. 2000. “Policing Masculinities: Investigating the Role of Homophobia and
Heteronormativity in the Lives of Adolescent School Boys.” The Journal of Men’s
Studies 8 (2): 213– 236.
Martino, W. 2006. “Straight-acting Masculinities: Normalization and Gender Hierarchies in Gay
Men’s Lives.” In Gendered Outcasts and Sexual Outlaws, edited by C. Kendall and W.
Martino, 35– 60. New York: Routledge.
Mayo, C. 2013. LGBTQ Youth and Education: Policies and Practices. New York: Teachers
College Press.
McRobbie, A. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage.
Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. 2011a. Aðalnámskrá framhaldsskóla: Almennur hluti.
[The Icelandic National Curriculum Guide for Upper Secondary Schools. General Section
2011] Reykjavı́k: Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. Accessed January 20, 2012.
[Link]
Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. 2011b. Aðalnámskrá grunnskóla: Almennur hluti.
[The Icelandic National Curriculum Guide for Compulsory Schools. General Section 2011]
Reykjavı́k: Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. Accessed January 20, 2012. http://
[Link]/utgefid-efni/namskrar/adalnamskra-grunnskola/
Nayak, A., and M. J. Kehily. 2008. Gender, Youth and Culture. Young Masculinities and
Femininities. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pascoe, C. J. 2007. Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Rasmussen, M. L. 2006. Becoming Subjects: Sexualities and Secondary Schooling. New York:
Routledge.
Renold, E. 2004. “‘Other’ Boys: Negotiating Non-Hegemonic Masculinities in the Primary
School.” Gender and Education 16 (2): 247– 265.
Renold, E. 2005. Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Childrens’ Gender and Sexual
Relations in the Primary School. London: Routledge Falmer.
Rich, A. 1993. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” In The Lesbian and Gay
Studies Reader, edited by H. Abelove, M. A. Barale, and D. M. Halperin, 227 –253.
New York: Routledge.
Richardson, D. 2000. “Claiming Citizenship? Sexuality, Citizenship and Lesbian/Feminist
Theory.” Sexualities 3 (2): 255 –272.
Röthing, A. 2008. “Homotolerance and Heteronormativity in Norwegian Classrooms.” Gender
and Education 20 (3): 253 – 266.
Ryan, G. W., and H. R. Bernard. 2003. “Techniques to Identify Themes.” Field Methods 15 (1):
85– 109.
Rydström, J. 2011. Odd Couples. A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia. Amsterdam: Aksant.
 International Journal of Inclusive Education 993

Sedgwick, E. K. 1991. “How to Bring Your Kids up Gay.” Social Text 29: 18– 27.
Seidman, S., ed. 1996. Queer Theory/Sociology. London: Blackwell.
Seidman, S. 2009. The Social Construction of Sexuality. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Sigurgeirsdóttir, K., and R. Magnúsdóttir. 2014. Úttekt á félagslı́fi framhaldsskólanema [Report
about Social Events and Students’ Culture at Icelandic Upper Secondary Schools].
Reykjavı́k: Ministry of Culture and Education.
Silverman, David. 2004. “Who Cares about, Experience. Missing Issues in Qualitative
Research.” In Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice, edited by D.
Silverman, 342– 367. London: Sage.
Silverman, D. 2010. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage.
Skeggs, B. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
The Single Marriage Act no. 65/2010.
Þorvaldsdóttir, Þ. 2007. “Iceland 1869 – 1992: From Silence to Rainbow Revolution.” In
Downloaded by [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile] at 13:57 21 August 2015

Criminally Queer: Homosexuality and Criminal Law in Scandinavia 1842 – 1999, edited
by J. Rydström and K. Mustola, 117 – 144. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic.
Thurlow, C., and G. Aiello. 2007. “National Pride, Global Capital: A Social Semiotic Analysis
of Transnational Visual Branding in the Airline Industry.” Visual Communication 6 (3):
305– 344.
Valentine, G. 1993. “Negotiating and Managing Multiple Sexual Identities: Lesbian Time-space
Strategies.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. New Series 18 (2): 237–
248.
Van Leeuwen, T., and C. Jewitt, eds. 2001. Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage.
Walby, S. 1990. Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Warner, M. 1991. “Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet.” Social Text 9 (4): 3 –17.
Wilton, T. 1996. “Which one’s the Man? The Heterosexualisation of Lesbian Sex.” In
Theorising Heterosexuality. Telling it Straight, edited by D. Richardson, 125 –143.
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Wolcott, H. F. 2005. The Art of Fieldwork. London: Sage.