Becoming-American: Experiencing the nation through LGBT fabulation in a ninth grade U.S. history class

This article considers “safe spaces” for students—in particular LGBT students—as a worthy goal for educators, but ultimately a vision for learning that can shelter and limit the kinds of ethical encounters that provide opportunities for students to engage with contested narratives, histories, and perspectives on LGBT issues. As an alternative, the article explores “spaces of becoming” that work beyond safe spaces to be more inclusive of competing and contentious perspectives on LGBT issues. To examine how spaces of becoming work, two concepts from educational theory informed by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze—becoming and fabulation—are put to use in analyzing data from a qualitative study of a high school social studies teacher׳s unit on LGBT history in the United States. Examples of fabulation are highlighted to suggest how the narration of LGBT histories in two lessons of the teacher׳s ninth grade U.S. History course work both for and against a space of what the author terms “becoming-American” in this social studies classroom. Some implications from this study are drawn for social studies educators, namely how social studies education can push beyond awareness and visibility for LGBT persons for more radical curricular possibilities.