Promoting the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity in education is increasingly under attack across Europe and beyond. Queer-feminist activists, the proponents of gender studies as well as queer-friendly youth and educational organisations face fierce opposition from right-wing extremists, religious fundamentalists and other groups with conservative agendas. Given these challenging circumstances, we want to create a space where practitioners, academics and activists gather to discuss, without too much clamour, various themes related to queer pedagogies.

By this we mean in the broadest sense the queer transfer of knowledge and the transfer of queer knowledge, whether it occurs in formal educational settings, in subcultural spaces, in online environments or within families, chosen or otherwise.

Questions that papers may engage with include, but are not limited to:

- How can teaching and learning processes be queered in schools, universities and other institutions?
- How can queer topics be talked about in children’s books, educational materials, films, documentaries, exhibitions and other media addressing a younger audience?
- How has the transfer of queer knowledge been impeded within different educational arenas, past and present?
- Why were pedagogies tabooing sex and gender diversity often justified in terms of protecting allegedly asexual children from adult dangers?
- In which ways did people and organisations oppose and resist such prohibitive policies?
- What roles do subcultural spaces, intergenerational queer relationships and other family constellations that venture beyond the biological play in the transmission of queer knowledge?
- How do labels and language in general mediate and change knowledge within processes of teaching and learning?
- How have children and youth with diverse gender and sexual identities be treated or disciplined?
- How can and could sex and sexuality be discussed and discovered in the context of childhood and youth?

We welcome proposals for presentations of 10 minutes from activists and researchers at all stages of their careers who work on queer pedagogies from historical, sociological, educational and other disciplinary perspectives. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV to queerwg@eui.eu by 10 January 2022. We will finalise the programme in early February 2022 and notify the applicants accordingly.

The workshop will take place in Florence, Italy on 30-31 May 2022. There will be no conference fees. Participants are asked to apply for funds from their home institutions to pay for travel and accommodation. Only for people who are not eligible for funds from other institutions, we may be able to offer bursaries that cover part of the expenses.

For any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organisers (queerwg@eui.eu).