Feminist pedagogy

Feminist pedagogy is a pedagogical framework grounded in feminist theory. It embraces a set of epistemological assumptions, teaching strategies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships. Feminist pedagogy involves more than teaching; it creates a scholarship of teaching because it brings “connected learning” into the very heart of women’s studies as a research field. Feminist pedagogy addresses the power imbalances present in many westernized educational institutions and works toward de-centering that power. This method of learning embodies a symbiotic system of knowledge; a relationship between teacher and student in which both parties simultaneously learn from one another rather than a hierarchical passing of knowledge from teacher to student. It identifies the practical applications of feminist theory, while promoting the importance of social change, specifically within the institutional hierarchy found in academia.

This pedagogy is a method of instruction which encourages the transformation of students from passive recipients of knowledge to active knowers who see themselves as agents of social change. It is employed most frequently in Women’s Studies classes, which aim to transform [students] from objects to subjects of inquiry. However, the use of feminist pedagogy is not restricted only to Women's Studies courses.

The theoretical foundation of feminist pedagogy is grounded in the critical theories of learning and teaching such as Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Feminist pedagogy is an engaged process facilitated by concrete classroom goals in which members learn to respect each other's differences, accomplish mutual goals, and help each other reach individual goals. This process facilitates participatory learning, validation of personal experience, encouragement of social understanding and activism, and the development of critical thinking and open-minds.

Qualities of feminist pedagogy

Distinctive qualities of feminist pedagogy are the tradition of focusing on gendered subjects, and the opening of taboo topics for discussion. It is, at its core, about the feminist critique. Feminist educators work to replace old paradigms of education with a new one which focuses on the individual's experience alongside acknowledgment of one's environment. It addresses the need for social change and focuses on educating the oppressed through strategies for empowering the self, building community, and ultimately developing leadership.

Feminist pedagogy shares certain characteristics with critical pedagogy, but while critical pedagogy is not inherently feminist, feminist pedagogy has an explicit foundation in feminism. Like all forms of critical pedagogy feminist pedagogy aims "to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action.". What makes feminist pedagogy unique is its emphasis on gender. With origins in the women’s studies movement, women are at the center of feminist pedagogy. Feminist pedagogy aligns itself with many forms of critical pedagogy including those focused on race and ethnicity, class, postcolonialism and globalization.

The introduction of the book Feminist Pedagogy: Looking Back to Move Forward explains the qualities, and distinctions from critical pedagogy, thus: "Like Freire’s libratory pedagogy, feminist pedagogy is based on assumptions about power and consciousness-raising, acknowledges the existence of oppression as well as the possibility of ending it, and foregrounds the desire for and primary goal of social transformation. However feminist theorizing offers important complexities such as questioning the notion of a coherent social subject or essential identity, articulating the multifaceted and shifting nature of identities and oppressions, viewing the history and value of feminist consciousness-raising as distinct from Freirean methods, and focusing as much on the interrogation of the teacher’s consciousness and social location as the student’s."

History

Feminist pedagogy is an interdisciplinary effort to challenge assumptions about teaching and learning; it positions issues of gender and power as central themes. The neologism feminist pedagogy was coined by feminist artist Judy Chicago in the 1980s, as an effort to develop new teaching models that challenged dominant educational approaches. Feminist pedagogy was adopted by feminists in women studies programs and later adopted by people teaching various disciplines. For example, John Kellermeier has written about successfully using techniques of feminist pedagogy to teach mathematics.

Influential figures

Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire

The theorist Paulo Freire is known for his works in the area of critical pedagogy. He penned Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968 (written in Portuguese, later published in English in 1970).
Freire believed that "education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility for themselves as beings capable of knowing — of knowing that they know and knowing that they don't" (Freire, 2004, p. 15)

Freire is also known for his disdain of what he called the "banking" concept of education, in which a student is viewed as an empty account waiting to be filled by the teacher. He said that "it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power" (Freire, 1970, p. 77)
His love for teaching, knowledge, the student, the student/teacher relationship, and the educational process has led to his heavy influence on present feminist educators.

bell hooks

bell hooks

Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an accomplished writer and educator.
In Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, she argues that a teachers' use of control and power over students dulls the students' enthusiasm and teaches obedience to authority, "confin[ing] each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning.” She advocated that universities encourage students and teachers to collaborate, making learning more relaxing while simultaneously exciting. She describes teaching as “a catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged”

Hooks based pedagogy on freedom, "Creating community in the classroom resembles both democratic process and a healthy family life, as shaped by 'mutual willingness to listen, to argue, to disagree, and to make peace."

Hooks also builds a bridge between critical thinking and real-life situations to enable educators to show students the everyday world instead of the stereotypical perspective of the world.

Bell Hooks

Patti Lather

Patti Lather has taught qualitative research, feminist methodology, and gender and education at Ohio State University since 1988. She is the author of Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy With/in the Postmodern and Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts Toward a Double(d) Science.

Ileana Jiménez

Ileana Jiménez is a high school teacher in New York City who teaches courses on feminism, LGBT literature, Toni Morrison, and memoir writing. She is nationally known for her writing and speaking about inclusivity in high schools, her work to make schools safer spaces for LGBT students, and has won numerous awards for curriculum development. She was heavily influenced in her feminism and her pedagogy by bell hooks.

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Ileana Jimenez

Ileana Jiménez teaches a class at Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York called “Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Writers, Artists and Activists”. This class consists of juniors and seniors. The objective of this class is to bring feminism to the attention of teens. Educate through an intersectional lens to help students comprehend their lives. Jiménez wants to apply the feminist pedagogy to engage her students with the national and global issues of or every day lives. “Intersections, which explains how intersectionality helps understand power and oppression, identify and agency.”

Practical implementation

Shimer College students engage in a decentered discussion of Sappho.

At its core, feminist pedagogy aims to decenter power in the classroom to give students the opportunity to voice their perspectives, realities, knowledge, and needs. This can be utilized through the process of decentering power, where the educator distances themselves from their authority status and enables their students to have equal footing with them. Pedagogy can also be implemented practically through the use of engaging in activism, within the classroom and outside of it.

Decentering power

One of the main tenets of feminist pedagogy is transforming the teacher and student relationship. Under this teaching method, educators seek to empower students by offering opportunities for critical thinking, self-analysis, and development of voice. Unlike many other methods of teaching, feminist pedagogy challenges lectures, memorization, and tests as methods for developing and transferring knowledge. Feminist pedagogy maintains that power in the classroom should be delicately balanced between teacher and students in order to inform curriculum and classroom practices. The sharing of power creates a space for dialogue that reflects the multiple voices and realities of the students.

By sharing the power, to promote voice among students, the educator and students move to a more equal position in which students produce knowledge. The shared power also decentralizes dominant traditional understandings of learning by allowing students to engage with the professor freely, instead of having the professor simply give students information.

Consciousness Raising

One of the main methods that feminist teachers utilize this decentering of power is through the process known as “consciousness raising”. Popularized in the early 1970s, the method is implemented usually by sitting in a circle and discussing one’s own experiences and by finding commonalities that individuals thought were only personal matters of their own lives. Ideally, consciousness raising is used as a method to increase the number of people who are aware of a social issue or problem.

Activist projects

Activist projects encourage students to identify real-life forms of oppression and to recognize the potential of feminist discourse outside of the academic realm. The goals of this practical application of feminist pedagogy include raising students’ consciousness about patriarchal oppression, empowering them to take action, and helping them learn specific political strategies for activism. Students’ activist projects have taken a variety of forms, including organizing letter-writing campaigns or writing letters to the editor, confronting campus administration or local law enforcement agencies, organizing groups to picket events, and participating in national marches.

Feminist teachers who have written about their experiences assigning activist projects recognize that this non-traditional method can be difficult for students. One noted difficulties along the way, including students who resisted putting themselves in a controversial position, and students who had trouble dealing with backlash. Since they want students to have a positive, yet challenging (often first) experience with activism, they often give students a great deal of freedom in choosing a project. Teachers may students to develop a project that would “protest sexism, racism, homophobia, or any other ‘ism’ related to feminist thought in one situation”.

Feminist assessment

Literature on feminist assessment is sparse, possibly because of the incongruity between notions of feminism and assessment. For example, traditional assessments such as standardized tests validate the banking model of learning and the concept of assessment in the form of grades or ability to advance within a structured curriculum is a form of power held by an institution. Nonetheless, literature on feminist pedagogy does contain a few examples of feminist assessment techniques. These techniques decenter the power structure upheld by traditional assessment by focusing on student voice and experience, which allows students agency as they participate in the assessment process.

The use of journaling is considered to be one feminist assessment technique as well as the idea of “participatory evaluation”, or evaluations characterized by interactivity and trust. Assessment techniques borrowed from critical pedagogy should be considered when thinking of feminist assessment approaches. These may include involving students in the creation of assessment criteria or peer assessment or self assessment. Finally, Accardi argues feminist assessment approaches can be embedded into more traditional forms of assessment (such as classroom assessment techniques or performance assessment techniques) if students are allowed to reflect on or evaluate their experiences. Surveys, interviewing and focus groups, too, could be considered assessments with a feminist approach provided that a student voice or knowledge is sought. These assessment strategies should be tailored to the type of instruction taking place; performance assessment techniques may be more appropriate for short term instruction. If the instructor has more time with the learner, then the opportunity for more in-depth, reflective feedback and assessment is possible.