Discourses, Silences, Violences and Educational Practices Surrounding Students of Diverse Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities

Abstract

The school, inheriting institution of modern tradition, attempts to homogenize students through discourses, silences and other disciplinement practices that constitute forms of violence and power dispositives against those subjectivities which do not fit into hegemonic models. From this point of view, this paper is aimed at showing this kind of violences that–in full twenty-first century–students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities keep dealing with in educational systems. The authors pretend to open up the discussion on the need to transform the school into a place of recognition, respect and valuation of diversity that makes it possible—as stated by the Colombian General Law of Education and subsequent legal developments—, the practice of citizenship and coexistence among men and women; with no other limits than those set by the others’ rights and the legal framework.