Abstracts
Abstract
This book review discusses Queer Kids and Social Violence: The Limits of Bullying, edited by Elizabethe Payne and Melissa J. Smith, which unpacks the anti-bullying framework that depoliticizes and individualizes LGBTQ+ youth in schools. Thirteen chapters with different methodologies and critical perspectives on social violence against queer youth focus on better understanding the experiences of queer and trans youth and disrupt the simplistic and individualized intervention to create “safe space” in schools. The book emphasizes how bullying is a structural mechanism through which gender privilege is (re)produced in different forms, by different agents, and in different directions within schools.
Keywords:
- bullying,
- queer,
- safety,
- gender,
- sexuality
Appendices
Bibliography
- Arendt, H. (1981). The life of the mind: The groundbreaking investigation on how we think. Harcourt.
- Butler, J. (2020). The force of nonviolence: An ethico-political bind. Verso.
- Lesko, N. (2010). Feeling abstinent? Feeling comprehensive? Touching the affects of sexuality curricula. Sex Education, 10(3), 281–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2010.491633
- Lesko, N., McCall, S. D., Dernikos, B. P., & Niccolini, A. (2024). Atmospheres of violence and becoming bad researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 37(3), 618–630. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2299021
- Meiners, E. R. (2016). For the children?: Protecting innocence in a carceral state. University of Minnesota Press.
- Payne, E., & Smith, M. J. (2025). Queer kids and social violence: The limits of bullying. University of Minnesota Press.
- Stanley, E. (2021). Atmospheres of violence. Duke University Press.

