Bishop Owis

My postdoctoral research will build off of the findings from my published Master's thesis entitled Educate, Not Titillate: LGBTQ+ Issues in Education. This postdoctoral research proposal will investigate the potential for QTBIPOC youth to resist systemic forms of oppression. This study is a curricular and pedagogical inquiry into (1) the possibilities of queering curricular content when teaching sex education to meets the needs of QTBIPOC youth and (2) pedagogical approaches to teaching sex education by co-creating and co-teaching queered curricular content. The question that will guide this postdoctoral project is what happens when queer, trans, and gender-diverse youth of colour work collaboratively to reimagine and recreate the sex education curriculum as a way to resist cis-heteronormativity, colonialism and whiteness? This project uses a community/youth participatory action research methodology combined with public, art-based pedagogies (visual art, documentary film making, photography, etc) that centre queer community care, thrival, and futurity that moves beyond damage and deficit narratives of QTBIPOC youth.