Teachers-to-be studying gender and sexual diversity

This article investigates how pre-service teachers understand concepts of gender and sexuality in Finnish teacher training. By analysing the learning diaries of teachers-to-be attending a course called Gendered Practices in Education at the University of Lapland, we investigate how students comprehend gender and sexuality, how they argue for their way of thinking, and what kind of emotional dynamics can be identified in their learning processes. Our theoretical approach stems from the feminist pedagogical and methodological discussions on knowing as a contradictory process, which may arouse emotions and lead to either changes in understanding or resistance to the new knowledge. Based on interpretative and argumentation analysis, the learning diaries expressing acceptance of or resistance to feminist knowledge on gender structures and sexuality were identified as perpetuating the status quo, reflecting and transforming, and living the difference.