"It's not a secret that all children are different." : A Critical Discourse Analysis of how intersexed bodies are represented in Swedish sex education teacher's manuals

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates how intersexed bodies are represented in internet-based sex education teachers’ materials for school years 4-6. This study also investigates how the materials reproduce and challenge which gendered subjects are marginalized and which are privileged. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, by Norman Fairclough, I analyze textual features of the materials and the discursive and social practices. The analysis of the social practices is complemented by a post-structuralist approach to norm-critical pedagogy and Nikki Sullivan’s notion of somatechnics. I contribute to the discussion also by proceeding from my own experiences as a teacher in Swedish schools and from being a student in one of the Swedish teacher’s programs. I argue that the five materials I have analyzed represent intersex bodies as marginalized. This is done by maintaining the invisibility of intersexed bodies and presenting them only in connection with medical diagnosis or juridical discussions. It is also done by implicitly excluding gendered subjects that do not follow the cultural and social standards of the binary sex order. These findings reproduce the marginalization of gendered subjects that do not follow the binary sex order. Despite the above-mentioned reproduction, the materials also challenge which gendered subjects are marginalized/privileged to some extent. This is done by explicitly and implicitly including gendered subjects that do not follow the cultural and social standards of the binary sex order, including intersexed bodies.  Understanding discourse as both constitutive of and constituting social practices, I argue that educational contexts, and these findings for educational materials, are connected to the current treatment of intersexed bodies. Keywords: intersex, sex education, norm-critical pedagogy, somatechnics, CDA