| Abstract: |
The call for submissions from girls for a book, "Girls Talk," (Finch Publishing, Sydney, 1998) was based on the premise that girls have much to teach about the realities of negotiating ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Using the published written and visual contributions, and drawing from postcolonial, "mestizaje," and feminist theories, this paper explores the processes of "coming out" and "going home" in the lives of young women and the location of their schools and teachers in the processes of acknowledging, negotiating, and reclaiming their cultural backgrounds and diverse sexualities. The paper illustrates public and private strategies girls and young women are adopting and devising to resist ethnocentric, racist, and heterosexist educational structures and pedagogies. It also recommends pedagogical strategies that can assist all students in the recognition and engagement with difference and with multi-placed persons in schools who are constantly undertaking "coming out/going home" journeys. Contains 18 references. (Author/BT) |
