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Abstract

This paper describes an original teaching activity for instructors of graduate students. Leveraging a critical, transformative, and intersectional pedagogical perspective applied to graduate education, this paper prepares instructors to effectively teach queer theory through an application of the Hegemonic Heteronormativity (HH) model, introduced by Allen and Mendez in 2018. The HH model identifies heteronormativity as a pervasive, three-pronged hegemony, each of which shifts and changes intersectionally and over time. The three-part assignment described in this paper asks students to read the Hegemonic Heteronormativity manuscript independently before reviewing the model with instructor facilitation. Then, students apply the model to real-life examples from videos, vignettes, or published research studies. We provide questions to guide students in their application of the model, and options for instructors to tailor the activity towards varied disciplines, content areas, class sizes, and class levels. Learners debrief through a full class discussion of the activity, including a review of specific examples/evidence from their responses and questions to encourage critical reflection. The learning objectives of this activity are to (1) identify and describe the phenomenon of social construction as it pertains to gender, sexuality, and/or family; (2) demonstrate an understanding of social structures, and their influence over individual agency, identity, and behavior; (3) describe how social structures and corresponding social statuses relate to both privilege and oppression; (4) articulate the connections between privilege, oppression, context, and time; and (5) apply the HH model to populations, case studies, and examples in the past, present, and/or future.

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