Incidental moments: the paradox of belonging in educational spaces

Too often sex-gender-sexuality intersects with pedagogy and shapes the belonging of young people in ways that teachers do not see. This chapter shows how the unexpected presence of a jumping mat in a middle-class, middle-school, co-ed drama class leads the teacher to devise an impromptu, incidental activity that exposes the embodied nature of belonging in the pedagogical space of the classroom. It reveals that normative notions of sex-gender-sexuality and belonging are embedded and inherent in schooling practices and structures, privilege certain types of sex-sexuality-gendered belonging over others and influence the way teachers view and treat young people. The chapter exposes how this constellation of conflating conditions works to constitute young people as students who belong/do not belong and are successful/unsuccessful in any pedagogical moment.