School, Online Communities and Creative Workshops as Spaces for Non-normative Pre-teen Gendered and Sexual Cultures

Abstract

This study focuses on how space acts in shaping non-normative pre-teen gendered and sexual cultures. It was conducted in Northern Finland and consists of an arts-based case study of a group of 12- to 13-year-old students, who during our creative workshops on gender, sexuality and power reflected on the possibilities of gender and sexual diversity in their everyday lives. Inspired by feminist new materialist scholarship, which focuses on spatiality and materiality in co-constituting gendered and sexual meanings, in the analysis, we explore how school and social media—two central life spheres of today’s youth—act in affording distinct possibilities for transgressive gender and sexuality as well as attachments to LGBTIQ+ communities. Furthermore, the analysis indicates how non-normative relationalities can be supported in school-based creative workshops. By mapping how spaces co-constitute non-normative gender and sexuality, we can develop them to promote the sexual rights and welfare of young people.