My Arts-Informed Narrative Inquiry into Homophobia in Elementary Schools as a Supply Teacher

Using fiction writing techniques, such as the creation of composite characters and scenarios gathered from data collection and the author's tacit knowledge, this narrative teacher inquiry illustrates how anti-homophobia education might unfold in an elementary school. The art of yarning or storytelling is explored as an effective tool to confront homophobia with elementary school students and teachers. The author manipulates tone and style to create a bridge between the academy and the public, especially reaching out to teacher candidates and practicing teachers to share his insights and imagined possibilities. This research draws from poststructural sensibilities, challenging binary systems of gay-straight and male-female, exploring how accepted heterosexist and misandrous knowledge and social beliefs are constructed and upheld, and ultimately soliciting questionings so that status quo assumptions may be ruptured. In this supply teacher's fictional narrative, the imagination is celebrated as a provocative mode of artful educational inquiry. (Contains 9 footnotes.)