Books
For decades, caring adults have understood trans and gender-nonconforming youth as especially at-risk in schools. As a result, they have worked to create inclusive policies to accommodate, protect, and safeguard these young people from the increased challenges they are presumed to encounter. Fierce, Fabulous, and Fluid offers that accommodation approaches in schools participate in narrowly defining a particular form of trans identity as the only or ‘right’ way to be trans. Many trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming youth are missed and excluded by these policies and practices. Based on a yearlong ethnography in a high school alongside youth who were rarely recognized as trans, this book explores the often-unnoticed labor youth performed as they worked to exist and thrive, regardless of whether others understood them. Youth daily worked to invite expansive genders in school, demonstrating the potential and importance of educational spaces that want trans youth to be present. Fierce, Fabulous, and Fluid calls on educators to cultivate a desire for youth to be and grow up trans by turning away from ideas of risk and concern. This is the critical labor youth performed as they explored and lived in their gender-nonconformity. They engaged in this labor because they cared – about themselves, their genders, and the trans communities they were building together at the school. Through their care and their labor, they show us that different, queerer worlds are possible in schools. In fact, they are already happening, if we know where to look.
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Embracing Queer and Trans Frameworks in Qualitative Educational Research reflects on a decade of conversations about research, thinking, and life, exploring how to navigate the ethical complexities of working with queer and trans youth as queer and trans scholars. The authors introduce the framework of “showing our work,” an intimate approach that revisits the often- invisible processes behind what becomes the ‘final’ product. This lens offers a fresh, rarely told account of how research is made, highlighting the messy, reflective, and transformative moments that shape scholarly inquiry. By showing their work, the co-authors LJ Slovin and Sam Stiegler invite educational researchers to engage with these moments in their own practice – thinking alongside the discussions and decisions that shape methodological choices. They argue for the vital role of queer and trans methodologies in qualitative educational research, positioning them not just as subjectspecific tools but as critical lines of analytical inquiry. Drawing from their own research with queer and trans youth, both within and beyond educational spaces, the authors revisit and reimagine pivotal moments that challenged, provoked, and ultimately shaped key elements of their published work. Through this process, they create a generative space for methodological reimagining, situating ethnographic work with queer and trans youth as fertile ground for new ways of knowing. This book is essential reading for students across disciplines, as well as qualitative researchers engaged in youth studies, critical methodologies, sociology, and queer and trans studies. |
Selected Articles
Stiegler, S. and Slovin, L. (2023). Can the drag queen turn back time to give advice to her younger self? Journal of LGBT Youth, 21(3), 590-612.
Slovin, L. & Schey, R. (2023). Queer(ing) educational ethnography within and beyond schools. In A. Duran, K.
Strunk, & R. Schey (Eds.) Bridging the rainbow gap: Exploring the possibilities and tensions in queer and trans studies in education. Leiden, NL: Brill.
Slovin, L. (2022). ‘What matters what makes us gay?’ Affective failure in a social justice classroom. Sex Education, 23(2), 220-227.
Slovin, L. (2020). What grade are you in? On being a non-binary researcher. Curriculum Inquiry, 50(3), 225–241.
Slovin, L. and Semenec, P. (2019). Thinking/writing within and outside the IRB box. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methods, 10(1), 14-27.
Stiegler, S. and Slovin, L. (2023). Can the drag queen turn back time to give advice to her younger self? Journal of LGBT Youth, 21(3), 590-612.
Slovin, L. & Schey, R. (2023). Queer(ing) educational ethnography within and beyond schools. In A. Duran, K.
Strunk, & R. Schey (Eds.) Bridging the rainbow gap: Exploring the possibilities and tensions in queer and trans studies in education. Leiden, NL: Brill.
Slovin, L. (2022). ‘What matters what makes us gay?’ Affective failure in a social justice classroom. Sex Education, 23(2), 220-227.
Slovin, L. (2020). What grade are you in? On being a non-binary researcher. Curriculum Inquiry, 50(3), 225–241.
Slovin, L. and Semenec, P. (2019). Thinking/writing within and outside the IRB box. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methods, 10(1), 14-27.
