Safe Schools and Family Values in an Age of Gender Backlash Queer Stories, Social Reproduction, and Contested Futures

1.     Beginnings, 2.     Love, 3.     Autotheory, 4.     Schools, 5.     Panic, 6.     Backlash, 7.     Crisis, 8.     Reproduction, 9.     Power, 10.  Futures, Index

Biography

Roz Ward is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University, Australia with over 20 years’ international experience in education and community development. Co-founder of the Safe Schools program, Roz researches and teaches on diversity in schools, student wellbeing, and teacher workforce retention.

"At once personal and theoretical, this beautifully written and politically urgent book situates the backlash to Australia’s Safe Schools program within the rise of anti-gender and far-right movements. Drawing on Marxist, Feminist and Queer theory, it carefully maps the socio-structural, cultural and affective forces behind the backlash while calling for solidarity and collective praxis to build inclusive and emancipatory gender and sexual futures."
Professor E.J Renold, School of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK  

"Hopeful futures need to be informed by the work of scholars who recognise the defence of the heteronormative family as a key institution of social reproduction is a barrier to safer communities. This book is an accessible, carefully sequenced account which stresses that endings are not closures but opportunities for action. The book has relevance for graduate students, academics, teachers, and policy makers who want to understand more about the figure of the child in contemporary times."
Professor Julianne Moss, School of Education, Deakin University, Australia 

"This book makes a powerful and important contribution to understanding political controversy and personal censure in our time. The author’s direct experience of the events she describes enables her to bring both the personal and political to the analysis and to enhance our appreciation of a much broader ideological struggle."
Professor Emeritus Anne Mitchell AO, Australian Research Centre In Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Australia