Paving the road with good intentions: Semi-institutional discourse and heteronormativity in a sexuality education classroom

The aim of this study is to investigate gendered interaction and heteronormativity in both the private and public spheres of a classroom-based community of practice. In the recordings which form the focus of discourse analysis, students in a New Zealand secondary school Health classroom are beginning to apply what they have learned about the social construction of gender. They respond to questions which ask them to discuss images in various homoerotic print advertisements and comment on their positioning of men and women in society. The discussion of these gendered advertisements in the classroom lies at the interface of private and public spheres. The students express opinions as private individuals who are situated in an institutional setting. By comparing the talk of a small group of girls (who are the first to discuss the advertisements) with their subsequent talk (and that of others) during the whole class discussion, the influences of private, semi-institutional and institutional discourses can be explored. In spite of the teacher's intervention, a narrow version of heterosexuality is normalised (in this early stage of the sexuality unit at least) and other sexualities are erased or rendered inaccessible to those in the room, as homosexuality is positioned as external to this community of speakers. There is complex interplay between alignment to notions of sexual diversity at a semi-institutional level, and the demands of the heterosexual market at the level of private discourse. This interplay has consequences for the recurrence of heteronormativity.