Thesis

Bodies of contention : how dark, queer, and disabled bodies are negotiated within Greek pedagogical praxis

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Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2025
Thesis identifier
  • T17347
Person Identifier (Local)
  • 201990655
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Abstract
  • The constitution of queer, disabled and racialised bodies as different – that is, as deviant – and hence, their pathologisation and exclusion from the normative Greek school status quo has already been documented in previous research (Gogonas, 2010; Giavrimis, 2019) in the field of education. The present study, however, complements this research by demonstrating how narratives of ability, gender, race and sexuality interweave to create “figures of otherness” within Greek school spaces (Garland -Thomson, 2017, p. 6). Thus, the current thesis explores how contentious bodies, such as disabled, queer and racialised bodies, are negotiated through pedagogy in Greek mainstream school settings. In doing so, the present study raises and further advances the discussion around the ways students' bodily diversity is encountered within the rigid and normative Greek school status quo. Most importantly, the current thesis sheds light on issues of power covertly involved in the configuration of students’ subjectivities and institutional realitieS. The disclosure of such issues is attained by making clear that the hierarchical ranking of bodily traits - based on ability, gender, sexuality and race - through which diverse forms of embodiment obtain meaning, tends to regulate which bodies' narratives, experiences and lived realitieS are acknowledged, valued as well as rendered visible within the dominant school pedagogy. Conceptual tools from Erevelles (2011), Butler (2004b), Ahmed (2005), bell hooks (1994) and Foucault (1979, 1980) as well as Giroux (2005) - namely tools from feminism, black feminism, poststructuralism and critical pedagogy - are put together to elucidate how narratives of gender, race and ability interweave to create "figures of otherness" (Garland -Thomson, 2017, p. 6) based on bodily diversity within an educational system that still considers students' diversity a threat to "life as we know it" (Ahmed, 2014, p.144) Thus, the human body is viewed as the space of cultural and political activities in school settings within the present thesis (Erevelles, 2000). The aims of the current research in combination with its explorative character indicated that a qualitative and interpretive approach would be more compatible with the “messiness” (Oakley, 1984 cited in Roberts, 2014, p.4) of parents' views related to their children's bodily realitieS and experiences within Greek schooling. In keeping with the researcher's feminist stances, interview methods, namely semi-structured interviews with parents of disabled, L.G.B.T.Q.I+ and refugee or asylum-seeking children, were considered the most appropriate to shed light on the school lived realitieS of those students. However, the core data collection method had to be digitalised as face to face interviews were rendered unfeasible due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent strict lockdown imposed by the Greek Government (Abdul Rahman et al., 2021, p. 1).Thus, fifteen (15) out of eighteen (18) interviews - namely, only three (3) face to face interviews were carried out - with parents of disabled/ L.G.B.T.Q.I+ and refugee or asylum-seeking children were virtually conducted. Moreover, recruiting research participants amidst the pandemic turned out to be quite a challenging experience. As such, snowball sampling as a data accessing method was adopted in the researcher's attempt to overcome recruitment challenges and obtain "a population pool" of possible participants (Edmond, 2019, p.1). In total, eighteen (18) parents participated in the current research. Thus, six (6) parents from each of the three (3) groups were interviewed, that is, six (6) parents from the disability/L.G.B.T.Q.I+/ refugee or asylum-seeking group. Following a thematic analysis approach, identified as the most proper for this project, the subsequent two (2) key themes were identified: "Institutionalised schooling spaces and diverse forms of embodiment" and "Parents’ and Students’ bodies within the normative school status quo". The presented themes were transferable across the three (3) groups. The findings of the study indicate that contentious bodies like disabled, dark and queer bodies - constituted as posing a threat to the rigid and normative school practices and being at risk of failure - are mostly dislocated and "quarantined" in segregated spaces either inside or outside mainstream Greek schools. Within the narratives of the parents - particularly coming from the disability and the refugee or asylum-seeking group - it is clearly indicated that there is an established trend regarding how the authoritarian Greek school mantra usually secludes deviant bodies in special schools, or "inclusive" as well as reception classes within ordinary schools. Therefore, the present thesis highlights that disabled and dark bodies tend to be enclosed in these segregated spaces as their teachers seemed to be too “frightened” to teach them. Furthermore, this study points out the need for focusing attention on the institutional invisibility and exclusion of deviant bodies' bodily experiences and lived realities from dominant pedagogies and normative school cultures within a seemingly inclusive Greek schooling. At the same time the reductionist approach of inclusion promoting the pathologisation of queer, dark and disabled bodies should be replaced by an institutionalised perspective promoting the disruption of power injustices and exclusive regimes that produce inferior forms of embodiment.
Advisor / supervisor
  • Rivers, Ian
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