In 8100 Again: The Sounds of Students Breaking

In this article, the author uses the sounds of schooling to explore LGBTQ youth experiences as they relate to self-harm and suicide. Although sounds-as-voice and representation is a well-trodden path in scholarly conversations, the author centers her argument on the significance of sounds in the daily lives of LGBTQ students. This is significant as literature predominantly focuses on the signs of suicide as physical and visual rather than residing in sounded epistemologies. Expanding on previous work on the school-to-coffin pipeline, this article theorizes the sounds of students breaking to explore youth suicide and self-harm as they are nested in the everyday interactions of classrooms and corridors. Using a combination of personal narrative and interviews from a year-long sonic ethnography, the author explores how sounds are an important part of the school-to-coffin pipeline for LGBTQ youth and should therefore be regarded as a significant tool for unpacking some of the darkest experiences and notions learned through schooling- depression, self-harm, and suicide.