Small Differences Matter: Interrupting Certainty About Identity in Teacher Education

ABSTRACT This article offers a theory of identity that explicates how biological, experiential, and contextual influences contribute to the ongoing development of the human sense of self–what I describe as an ecological understanding of identity. My primary goal in developing this argument is not so much to create certainty about what it means to occupy a sexuality subject position but, instead, to interrupt certainty. Hopefully, my arguments about what constitutes human identities are unsettling, making readers less sure what is meant by words like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, heterosexual, man, and/or woman. I conclude with a discussion of what these insights might suggest for teacher education and for public schooling.