Wendy Cumming-Potvin

The Bloomsbury Handbook of LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in Educational Contexts brings together international contributions in scholarship and coverage, mapping the discipline through theoretical explorations, personal narratives and empirical studies. The handbook focuses on themes that examines Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer issues including: inclusion in action, engaging teaching spaces, social justice standpoints, student/teacher agency, preservice teacher education, criticality in educative spaces and children and agency. The book provides a crucial lens into educational contexts that fuel or hinder human flourishing, the power of learning spaces and institutional educative standpoints and teaching approaches. Cultural, social and economic injustices that perpetuate cycles of disadvantage and oppressive narratives are explored using different theoretical frameworks that underpin equitable and inclusive educative landscapes.

The postdigital landscape, with its shifting relationships between humans and technologies, has widened the visibility of feminist discourses, including for issues of sexual consent. But paradoxically, as feminist activism has gained traction through movements such as #MeToo, misogyny has intensified across everyday practices and many aspects of media. This contradiction has led to polarizing discourses and increasing anti-feminist backlash through networks such as the Manosphere. Focussing on the case of rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global feminist icon and drawing on examples from the sexual assault trial of French actor Gérard Depardieu, who continually denied any wrongdoing, this article explores the nexus between sexual consent, feminist activism and misogyny in a postdigital landscape. Underpinned by an intersectional approach to feminism, the article discusses issues of sexual consent, feminist activism, gender-based violence and public survivorship in a society underpinned by rape culture. Whilst much media attention has been paid to judicial and victim-survivorship narratives in an increasingly complex postdigital world, the article calls for education about issues of sexual consent, sexual assault, misogyny and the Manosphere to go beyond the judicial system across multiple disciplines.

Mainstream media has a long tradition of depicting sexual violence through stereotypes and misrepresentation. However, digital technology has recently highlighted alternate narratives that feature the stories of survivors of sexual violence. Although some scholars have welcomed digital narratives as facilitating activism that combats sexual violence through social media, for others, the online world is peppered with sexual abuse, sexism, and negative consequences for feminist activists. Underpinned by intersectional feminist theory, this chapter adopts the premise that sexual violence is an alarming narrative in many countries, including Australia. For migrant, refugee, bisexual, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, or transgender and gender diverse people, the risks of being attacked through sexual violence, online and offline, are exacerbated. Examining a highly mediatized case, the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Australia’s Parliament House, this chapter unpacks the politics of complaint towards postdigital feminist inquiry. The discourse is guided by reflections about: Who is allowed to complain, how does a complaint generate a digital narrative or transform into a messy, postdigital narrative? The chapter concludes by looking to the future of sharing narratives of sexual violence in contexts where politics, law, and social activism collide with the power of technology corporations.

In the time-poor world of secondary English-L1 (English as first language) teachers, integrating digital technology in the classroom is both a blessing and a curse. English-L1 teachers continually face tensions between delivering digital content, introducing traditional textbooks, maintaining student attention and teaching 21st century skills. The focus of our research is situated in Australian secondary English-L1 teaching and learning. Through personal and professional narratives, this article explores teachers' varied dispositions towards digital technology and technology-enhanced learning (TEL). These dispositions are related to prevailing school and English department cultures, which, in turn, tap into broader social beliefs about the subject English and how it is best taught. Our exploration considers Australian English-L1 teachers' complex relationships with technology and utilises a Vygotskian (1978) perspective to interpret the sociocultural milieu surrounding technology use in education. Findings suggest that the tenor of cultures in schools and their English departments is critical for understanding technology-enhanced learning in secondary English-L1 classrooms and English-L1 teachers’ dispositions towards technology.

In this conceptual paper, we integrate interdisciplinary perspectives from early childhood education and applied linguistics to propose a new framework: Playworld Translanguaging. This framework refers to the intentional blending of pedagogical translanguaging and conceptual playworlds to create a supportive, inclusive pedagogy in early childhood education settings for children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.We argue that pedagogical translanguaging and conceptual playworlds share complementary features and philosophical foundations that can enhance language and literacy development, conceptual understanding, problem-solving skills, identity formation, personal agency, and overall wellbeing in young children. As both approaches are rights-based, inclusive, and responsive, their combination has the potential to effectively address the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse children.While extensive research has shown the benefits of pedagogical translanguaging and conceptual playworlds independently, there is limited theorising and research on how combining these approaches might further improve outcomes in early childhood education. This paper thus aims to bridge that gap by introducing Playworld Translanguaging as a promising, unified approach.

Mainstream media has a long tradition of depicting sexual violence through stereotypes and misrepresentation. However, digital technology has recently highlighted alternate narratives that feature the stories of survivors of sexual violence. Although some scholars have welcomed digital narratives as facilitating activism that combats sexual violence through social media, for others, the online world is peppered with sexual abuse, sexism, and negative consequences for feminist activists. Underpinned by intersectional feminist theory, this chapter adopts the premise that sexual violence is an alarming narrative in many countries, including Australia. For migrant, refugee, bisexual, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, or transgender and gender diverse people, the risks of being attacked through sexual violence, online and offline, are exacerbated. Examining a highly mediatized case, the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Australia’s Parliament House, this chapter unpacks the politics of complaint towards postdigital feminist inquiry. The discourse is guided by reflections about: Who is allowed to complain, how does a complaint generate a digital narrative or transform into a messy, postdigital narrative? The chapter concludes by looking to the future of sharing narratives of sexual violence in contexts where politics, law, and social activism collide with the power of technology corporations.