Intersectionality is a theory that was developed in the 1980s by the African-American legal scholar Dr. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. She defines it as "a metaphor for understanding the ways in which multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and they create obstacles that are not often understood within conventional ways of thinking about whatever social advocacy structures we have."
In practice, this means a recognition that no student is just their race, ethnicity, gender, ability, class, etc. They are all those things at once. We all live at the intersections of our various identities. A student might have privilege because they are white but have less privilege in other instances because they are disabled. A student might have less privilege because they identify as a woman but hold more privilege than others because they are thin.
The purpose of intersectionality is to give us a lens through which we see each other so we can better understand our lived realities.
Tips for teaching health and physical education (H&PE) from an intersectional lens:
- Understand who is impacted. Participation and opportunities in H&PE are known to vary across individuals with different social positions. Take the time to know who is impacted and how systems of oppression produce inequalities based on individuals' social positioning. For example, a student's experience in H&PE can manifest at varying intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, ability, and other identity-based variables. Given these, teachers should take an intersectional lens to program plan opportunities in H&PE to increase participation for marginalized groups.
- Recognize that people's ability to intervene is directly linked to the power they hold in the situation. For example, white cis gender men who teach physical education can easily interrupt misogynist comments in H&PE versus young women who are more likely to be dismissed. But that doesn’t mean marginalized students are incapable of being effective bystanders. It just means we need to offer a variety of tools for each scenario so that every student, regardless of their privilege, can safely intervene and make a difference.
- Diversify the resources. When using resources such as videos, posters, books in your H&PE program, consider these questions: Do they only feature white, non-disabled, cisgender-passing people? When you invite a guest speaker, are they also white, non-disabled and/or cisgender-passing? If I do invite speakers of colour, is it just for discussions on race, racism, and diversity? Change that! Students thrive when they see themselves represented in all areas of life and this topic is no exception. Provide opportunities to celebrate marginalized and historically oppressed groups.