Reading Gender Relations and Sexuality: Preteens Speak out‪.‬

Recent research has documented the persistence of unequal gender relations and homophobia in young people's lives. Feminist post-structural theories of gender and socio-cultural theories of learning suggest educators need to understand students' constructions of gender relations, masculine/feminine desires, and sexuality if they hope to challenge these behaviors. In this article, we examine a diverse group of 47 preteens' constructions of gender relations, masculine/feminine desires, and sexuality, using a survey, a story from the popular comic Archie, and individual interviews. We round that although participants produced feminist and patriarchal constructions of gender relations, they constructed masculine and feminine sexuality as uniformly heterosexual. Key words: popular culture, feminism, adolescents, discourse analysis