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Theoretical, Political, and Pedagogical Challenges in the Feminist Classroom: Our Struggles to “Walk the Walk”

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The authors explore both theoretical issues in feminist pedagogy and the politics of the contemporary university classroom. They examine various intersections of gender, power, pedagogical theory, and academic discipline in order to bring greater attention to the struggle many teachers face in "walking the walk" as feminist teachers.

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... "[Referring] to individual or collective action taken to change aspects of society, such as institutional policies and practices, which are perceived to be unjust" (pp. [46][47], critical action may be characterized as any number of activities or activism meant to enact social change. ...
... It is important to consider that when implementing feminist or other liberatory pedagogies, educators usually must work around and within various constraints and administrative pressures [31,46,47]. However, due to my teaching environment, I was able to focus entirely on my students' development and the implementation of FLP in the classroom. ...
... While the students in my class may have learned the same writing skills and achieved the SLOs implemented by the administration in a conventional classroom, in my feminist classroom, they were able to do so while also developing critical consciousness. If teachers can show that by using FLP they are not sacrificing language learning but motivating and nurturing it while practicing liberatory and innovative pedagogies, it may be possible to confront some of Sattler's [31], Crabtree and Sapp's [46] and Webber's [47] concerns of unsupportive or hostile administrations and teaching environments. ...
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Feminist pedagogy is a teaching practice, philosophy and process that seeks to confront and deconstruct oppressive power structures both within and outside of the classroom using a gendered lens. As Women’s Studies departments continue to grow in many universities, feminist pedagogy seems to be gaining popularity as an approach to engaging students in liberatory classroom practices. However, feminist language pedagogy (feminist pedagogy in the second language learning context) appears to have stagnated. This paper investigates the implementation of feminist language pedagogy in an EAP writing classroom for first-year students at a public university in the Southwest of the United States. Using action research, the teacher, who is the author of this paper, examined how feminist language pedagogy aids the development of her students’ critical consciousness and serves as a motivational tool for L2 writing development. The author finds that even in a short, sixteen-week semester, it is possible for students to foster critical consciousness without sacrificing linguistic development.
... The reflexive account in this paper adds to recent research in higher education in general, which has focussed on the issues of both feminist pedagogy and gendering the curriculum (see for example : Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Lacey & Smits, 2015;Love & Helmbrecht, 2007;Sang & Glasgow, 2016). Drawing on classroom experience and student evaluations, I critically reflect on my position as a pre-career lecturer/researcher (for the purposes of the UK Research Excellence Framework (2014) a research career was thought to begin upon attainment of a 0.2 of a full time equivalent contract and engagement in independent research) and that of my students to explore barriers to gendering the curriculum. ...
... However, it is not simply belonging in business or the neo-liberal associations and focus on skills training that might create a barrier to gendering the curriculum, as even academics within women's studies face opposition from students and faculty. Crabtree & Sapp (2003) note how institutional norms shape pedagogy and academics (especially those with casual contracts) fear going against the grain, drawing on their own experiences the authors discuss how students take issue with feminist pedagogy and content. ...
... Surprisingly, students may be less resistant to male feminist lecturers (Sang & Glasgow, 2016;Jenkins, 2014), who are seen as "young and hip", and even when male feminists try to break down authoritative hierarchies students are more reluctant to question their grading than with female feminist pedagogues (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). This situation highlights the existence of gender norms within universities, which when coupled with post-feminist discourse can create a high hurdle to overcome when gendering the curriculum from a feminist perspective. ...
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Pedagogy should be understood as transformative practice, and yet in many cases the neoliberalization and patriarchal structure of higher education institutions can stifle teachers and students. Tourism has been promoted as a vehicle for female empowerment, yet here it is suggested that in order for this to happen, gender must not only be taught in tourism classrooms, but it must be taught adopting a feminist approach. The motivation for this paper is to explore how power dynamics intersect and relate to teaching gender in the tourism classroom in order to highlight potential barriers to gendering the curriculum. Reflexively engaging with my own practice I highlight potential future strategies for academicians.
... Feminist Pedagogy in Action: Photovoice as an Experiential Class Project Rachael A. Robinson-Keilig 1 , Cynthia Hamill 1 , Annalisa Gwin-Vinsant 1 , and Matthew Dashner 1 Classroom projects based on feminist pedagogy seek to challenge the instructor/student hierarchy, place value on student experience and knowledge, and facilitate critical consciousness (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Enns & Forrest, 2005;hooks, 1994;Tisdell, 1998;Weiler, 1991). The underlying principles of Photovoice research methodology share these same tenets but with a focus on the researcher/participant relationship and the participants' own knowledge base (Carlson, Engebretson, & Chamberlain, 2006;Wang & Burris, 1997). ...
... The self-disclosure of students' subjective experiences as a means of integrating student knowledge with classroom content is not a new idea in feminist pedagogy (Sinacore & Boatwright, 2005). Many feminist educators have documented various approaches and strategies that elevate students' experiences (Chow, Fleck, Fan, Joseph, & Lyter, 2003;Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Enns & Forrest, 2005;Sharp et al., 2007). Photovoice as a classroom project offers another unique approach to this endeavor because it utilizes the creative medium of photography to bring out students' voices while also engaging students in a process of self-reflection and examination of the collective experiences of others. ...
... Photovoice as a classroom project offers another unique approach to this endeavor because it utilizes the creative medium of photography to bring out students' voices while also engaging students in a process of self-reflection and examination of the collective experiences of others. In its entirety, Photovoice as a classroom project directly addresses three core feminist pedagogical principles: challenging instructor/student hierarchy, valuing student experience and knowledge and facilitating critical consciousness (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Enns & Forrest, 2005;hooks, 1994;Tisdell, 1998;Weiler, 1991). In the following, I will review these three principles in relation to the steps of the Photovoice project. ...
... 80). A more recent article by Crabtree and Sapp (2003) discusses the use of feminist pedagogy in higher education today. It explores the challenges that feminist pedagogues may face in light of institutional culture and climate and included a review of the barriers that exist in terms of feminist practice at the university level. ...
... It explores the challenges that feminist pedagogues may face in light of institutional culture and climate and included a review of the barriers that exist in terms of feminist practice at the university level. Crabtree & Sapp (2003) site three primary barriers: "conservative opposition," ...
... In one specific example, one author relays her struggle with how she should identify herself to students and specifically whether to impose the use of a formal title in the classroom (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). In contrast to the ideals of feminist pedagogy, the use of a formal title may serve to separate the teacher from the students and unintentionally impose a power relationship. ...
Article
The use of technology for instruction continues to increase and is playing a more significant role in higher education (DeAngelo et al., 2009). As instructional technology has become a more integral part of college and university teaching, researchers have noted gender-related differences in regard to faculty approach, perception, and implementation of technology (Campbell & Varnhagen, 2002). While research investigating traditional classroom settings has suggested that female faculty have historically shown a stronger preference for student-centered pedagogy as compared to male faculty (e.g., Lammers & Murphy, 2002; Statham-Macke, 1980), fewer studies have focused on how potential gendered pedagogical preferences translate into use of and approach to instructional technology in higher education. Consequently, it is important to investigate faculty gender and pedagogical preference in the application of instructional technology in order to inform practice within institutions of higher education. This dissertation investigates what happens when male and female faculty use a course management system (CMS) to present all or part of their instructional program online through the use of qualitative methods. A comparative case study grounded in a theoretical framework based on Women’s Ways of Knowing and feminist pedagogy guided analysis of data collected from faculty interviews, course observations, and content analysis of syllabi. After considering the narratives of the eight faculty participants in this study as well as course observation and document analysis, several speculative results emerged, including the notion that female faculty participants may be more likely to invite student feedback on their course. I believe that engaging students in the construction of the online component of the course may suggest that female faculty are more critically reflective of their instructional program online. In addition, females may be more likely to encourage the formation of an online community. The encouragement of student interaction in the course is considered to be more student-centered because it encourages a more democratic construction of knowledge. While there were differences based on the context of each course, female faculty respondents were more likely to use multiple ways to interact with students and offer their feedback and support. The integration of student experiences with course content and use of technologic functions resulted in intentional personalization of the course for students. Type of presentation (online versus hybrid) and level of instruction (graduate versus undergraduate) also were related to student-centered instructional approaches to the Blackboard CMS, as I observed in this study. The online faculty used the technology more heavily than did the faculty teaching face-to-face, most likely a function of the goals of the respective types of instructional programs. The graduate courses, in general, were more likely to include student discussion leading to a more democratic construction of knowledge, a testament to the specific aims of that type of course. Findings are discussed with respect to their implications for understanding gendered patterns of the use of instructional technology.
... Feminist pedagogy is recognised to facilitate learning by valuing each person as an individual, building relationships, developing a sense of community and promoting the creation of a safe space for personal development; based on trust, sharing, and empowerment (Chinn, 2001). According to Crabtree and Sapp (2003) feminist pedagogy creates empowering learning environments for students and involves embracing diversity to form a classroom where all student voices are heard. The power of sharing is valued to build a community of learners in which teachers and students share their knowledge, talents and skills to enhance the learning of all (Chinn, 2001;Hayes and Flannery, 2000). ...
... The change in philosophy of nurse education in recent years has meant that traditional teacher centred approaches such as lectures are less popular compared with student centred approaches. These depend on building student-teacher relationships and may involve engaging in dialogue through group learning activities facilitated by the nurse lecturer who adopts the position of co-learner (Crabtree and Sapp, 2003). This method is encouraged as it places the student at the heart of learning core skills required for nursing and promotes the development of graduate attributes such as a confident thinker, determined creator, flexible collaborator and ambitious enquirers (Glasper et al., 2009;Simpson, 2007). ...
... The student nurses provided a community of learners from a diverse social and cultural background who were eager for new forms of knowledge founded on personal liberation and social equality. The ambition was to create a classroom which students would view as exciting and a place where honesty and reciprocal relationships were valued (Crabtree and Sapp, 2003;Crabtree et al., 2009). The class size was large at 72 students which created a barrier to working with the concepts of feminist pedagogy such as creating a community and ensuring everyone has a voice (Chinn, 2001;Hayes and Flannery, 2000). ...
... This approach provides students with a language of criticism that directs them to analyse the differences between social groups, structures inside and outside the academic environment and their roles in various forms of authority, obedience, hierarchy and exploitation. It provides students with ways to analyse practices related to sexism, racism and class exploitation that configure and direct the situations people face in everyday life (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). Knowledge acquired in classrooms should provide the basis for students to understand the real conditions of their everyday lives (Shor, 1980). ...
... Some of the basic educational objectives of the feminist pedagogy are to share the intellectual and spiritual development of students, to raise awareness of students about the world in which they live, to respect the voices of students and to encourage them to think critically and analyse their social position, especially in terms of racism, sexism, repression and domination (Hooks, 1994;Shrewsbury, 1993). In terms of goals and outcomes, the feminist pedagogy aims not only to improve students' conceptual learning but also to raise their awareness and promote their personal development and social responsibility (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). It was aimed in this study to carry out a practice for the embodiment of such objectives and to analyse the views of participants-who performed this practice-on their experiences in the implementation process in an undergraduate course designed and structured within the framework of feminist pedagogical principles. ...
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Although the definitions of feminist pedagogy vary, the agreement is based on resisting hierarchy, using experience as a source of learning and transformative learning principles. The aim of this study was to analyse opinions about the experiences within a design project framework designed and structured within the framework of feminist pedagogical principles. The descriptive content analysis study is designed within the framework of the qualitative research approach. Fifty seven people participated in the course titled Gender and Education, which was conducted by the researcher at a state university in the spring semester of 2018–2019 academic year. A form with 13 open-ended questions prepared within the framework of the processes of the project was made accessible through Google Forms for the participants to fill. The written responses of the participants to the questionnaire were coded and transferred to the MAXQDA software program, and the data were analysed through descriptive content analysis. Keywords: Feminist pedagogy, praxis, gender and education, descriptive content analysis.
... Without the ability or incentive to work with context, the joint social work and feminist goal of transforming society is replaced with the reproduction of "oppressive social arrangements" (Kovacs et al., 2013, p. 234). Feminist pedagogy aims to destabilise the status quo (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003) in order to work towards social change. This positions both the feminist educator and, potentially, her students in opposition to dominant and powerful structures and practices. ...
... This positions both the feminist educator and, potentially, her students in opposition to dominant and powerful structures and practices. Therefore, it is not in the best interests of the neoliberal university to support feminist pedagogical goals (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). However, the authors of this article believe it is the responsibility of feminist social work pedagogy to work out ways to do so. ...
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INTRODUCTION: The practice and teaching of western social work is shaped within the institutional context of a predominately managerial higher education sector and neoliberal societal context that valorises the individual. Critical feminist social work educators face constraints and challenges when trying to imagine, co-construct, enact and improve ways to engage in the communal relationality of critical feminist pedagogy. APPROACH: In this article, the authors draw upon the literature and use a reflective, inductive approach to explore and analyse observations made about efforts to engage with a subversive pedagogy whilst surviving in the neoliberal academy. CONCLUSION: While the article draws on experiences of social work teaching and research in a regional Australian university, the matters explored are likely to have resonance for social work education in other parts of the world. A tentative outline for thinking about the processes involved in co-creating a critical feminist pedagogical practice is offered. KEYWORDS: critical feminist pedagogy; intersectionality; social work education; critical hope; imagination
... However, scholars also document the ways that their efforts may fall short, be met with resistance by students, and be limited by institutional constraints. Feminist instructors may encounter a lack of institutional and social support, particularly from those who do not see such approaches as effective, legitimate, and/or practical (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;hooks, 1994). Fear of "teaching outside institutional norms" may inhibit instructors, particularly those who occupy vulnerable institutional positions (e.g., minority faculty and students, untenured and part-time faculty, and graduate students; Crabtree & Sapp, 2003, p. 133). ...
... First, we contribute by calling attention to the communicative constitutions of tensions within feminist pedagogies. Previous work has focused on the challenges of the feminist classroom with student resistance and institutional constraints framed as barriers to be overcome by individual instructors (e.g., Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). Tension-centered organizing allows us to critically examine our teaching in and outside of the classroom, our interactions within the community of instructors, the intersectional identities we bring to bear in teaching, and the ways we individuate and adapt to institutional structures while also resisting hegemonic norms and rules. ...
Article
Feminist pedagogies hold potential to create more inclusive and transformative classrooms. Adopting a tension-centered approach, we draw on our individual and collective reflections on the design and instruction of a multisection undergraduate organizational communication course to build an autoethnographic account of the tensions associated with enacting feminist pedagogies. Specifically, we unpack the ways tensions emerged as we strove to align our practice with specific feminist pedagogical principles—building nonhierarchical relations, encouraging multivocality, and caring for students—and how we made sense of and discursively managed these tensions. In doing so, we dissect the ways that tensions are communicatively constituted, gauge how to transform our pedagogy by reframing dualisms into dialectics, emphasize the importance of reflexivity, and, finally, offer practical strategies for communication instructors who seek strategies for transforming classrooms.
... West (2004), pondering further the political passivity of the majority of U.S. citizens, argues that our democracy is in danger unless we begin teaching people to become democratic citizens. Ralph Waldo Emerson's (apud WEST, 2004) concept of the democratic citizen is someone who thinks, judges, and speaks freely for him/herself (EMERSON, 1990; originally published 1837, in essay entitled "The American Scholar," and in 1841, in essay entitled "Self-Reliance"). The democratic citizen, therefore, needs to possess sharp analytical skills, an ability to evaluate arguments and evidence, and a unique voice that can be exercised comfortably in the public arena. ...
... When coupled with critical pedagogy, feminist pedagogy (see for example SCHNIEDEWIND, 1987;SCHACHT, 2000;CRABTREE & SAPP, 2003), provides rich processes for sharing power and encouraging voice in the classroom as we move toward conscientização together. Feminist pedagogy, like critical pedagogy, assumes that the classroom can become a liberatory space for students and teacher. ...
... As a social work and women's studies educator, my approach to teaching and learning is heavily influenced by the principles of feminist pedagogy. Feminist pedagogy has been defined as a collection of classroom practices, educational strategies, and relational approaches informed by critical pedagogy and feminist theories (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). Feminist pedagogy promotes transformative learning by replacing the "banking model" of education, in which students are viewed as passive receptacles of information, with a "partnership model" which constructs students as co-producers of knowledge (Stake, 2006). ...
... Through participatory learning, self reflection, and consciousness-raising, feminist pedagogy seeks to both intellectually and emotionally engage students as dynamic learners. Through this process, feminist pedagogy strives to cultivate both the personal and political empowerment of students to become catalysts for social change (Carillo, 2007;Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Larson, 2005;Stake 2006). ...
Article
T he use of group work has been noted as an important pedagogical tool for promoting the development of social skills, student engage-ment with course material, peer directed learning, self reflection, and critical thinking (Biggs, 2003). Because of its perceived intellectual, academic, and social benefits, group work is increasingly used in a myriad of classroom settings. Although the in-corporation of group work into university courses is growing in popularity, the process of how to ac-tually do group work is rarely taught to students. Group work assignments tend to be content rath-er than process focused, with the implicit assump-tion being that students will learn the necessary skills for working effectively in groups experien-tially through engaging with others in task-orient-ed assignments. Students are rarely encouraged or required to critically self reflect on their interper-sonal dynamics when engaging in group activities, with group work assignments traditionally being marked on the final product (content) rather than the mechanisms through which the product was collectively created (process). As such, students engage in knowledge-based learning through group-oriented exercises, but rarely achieve the level of interpersonal skill development that such exercises are purported to elicit. Recognizing the need to approach group work in an innovative way to maximize its potential learning benefits for students, I experimented with In this essay, I describe my experience applying the principles of feminist group process in a senior level social science course. I begin by providing an overview of feminist pedagogy as an approach to teaching and learning and discuss the relevance of feminist group process within this model. I then highlight the core components of feminist group process, outlined by Chinn (2004), that I integrated into my classroom. I conclude with a discussion of recommendations for curriculum development based on my own praxis.
... While these practices are in themselves already complex and demanding, attempting to practice them under the conditions of mainstream educational settings (while also trying to transform those conditions) can be particularly daunting, exhausting, and even counterproductive for both students and ourselves (e.g. Ellsworth, 1989;Luke, 1996;Crabtree & Sapp, 2003). As such, feminist pedagogy entails thinking about 'how the specific material and institutional conditions in which we teach impact upon our capacity to work with students' discomfort in generative and supportive ways' (Pereira, 2012, p. 132). ...
... With this in mind, feminist pedagogy was chosen as one of many possible approaches to integrating equity into the classroom due to its ideological overlap with other equity-based theories, such as ethics of care and intersectionality. The term "feminist" in this paper refers to an ethical perspective that considers gender issues as central to culture and power (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;hooks, 1996a, 1996bWeiler, 1991). Feminist pedagogy is a set of classroom practices grounded in critical pedagogical and feminist theory (Webb, et al., 2002;Weiler, 1991). ...
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It is imperative that today’s advertising, journalism, mass communication, and public relations students are prepared to engage in corporate activism and corporate social responsibility communications once in the workforce. This article explores the need for incorporating equity-based pedagogy, using feminism as one of many approaches, into skills-based communication courses. The researchers conducted 20 qualitative interviews with academics to discuss various approaches, examples, and learnings. The findings suggest that using a feminist framework to teach skills: (1) enhances the skill being taught, (2) allows students to communicate more effectively, (3) builds life skills, and (4) comes in many forms. The article concludes with consideration to areas for future research and contributes to the understanding of academics engaged in a feminist approach to teaching skills-based communication courses.
... To reach interpersonal and pedagogical goals regarding care in higher education, feminist pedagogy and theory offer concrete paths toward progress. Crabtree and Sapp (2003) explained that "engaging in student and teacher self and mutual reflexivity is central to feminist pedagogy" which brings focus to both individual and community well-being (p. 132). ...
Research
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Faculty-student interaction in higher education, well-being, feminist pedagogy, care ethics
... Berger (2013), kadın çalışmalarının önemli bir mirası olarak sosyal sorumluluk üzerindeki pedagojik vurgunun, öğrencilere sivil katılım bağlamlarında kuram ve uygulama arasındaki gerilimlerle mücadele etmeleri için çeşitli araçlar sağladığını belirtir. Öğrencilere, gündelik yaşamda insanların karşılaştıkları durumları yapılandıran ve yönlendiren cinsiyetçilikle, ırkçılıkla ve sınıf sömürüsüyle ilgili uygulamaları analiz etmenin yollarını sunar (Crabtree ve Sapp, 2003). Bu yaklaşım, öğrencilere toplumsal gruplar arasındaki farklılıkları, akademik ortamın içindeki ve dışındaki yapıları ve çeşitli otorite, itaat, hiyerarşi ve tahakküm biçimlerindeki kendi rollerini analiz etmeye götüren bir eleştiri dili de sağlar. ...
... Our research is influenced by feminist epistemologies which view knowledge as socially constructed and shaped by diverse experiences; this in turn challenges a problematic expert hierarchy that reinforces oppression (Crabtree and Sapp, 2003). The originators of photo-voice embraced this priority by conducting research 'by and with women' instead of 'on women' (Wang and Burris, 1997). ...
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Academic calendars and university timelines set an urgent pace for researchers, which can hinder the establishment of long-term community partnerships. Given community-based participatory research’s (CBPR) emphasis on community-led research, time constraints can inhibit academic researchers’ commitments to collaborative methodologies and participatory research. This article considers how CBPR can be adapted for shorter-term engagements while still producing mutually beneficial research. In doing so, we contribute to the existing corpus on rapid assessment methodologies, characterized for adopting methods traditionally practiced over a longer duration to shorter time frames. We review the successes and limitations of a CBPR project executed within the timespan of six months in Flint, Michigan. In the case discussed, photo-voice enabled the inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, horizontal partnerships, reciprocal learning, and an accessible disemmination format within a CBPR framework. In conclusion we assert that there is value in short-term CBPR, especially for emergent issues where there is a need for rapid, responsive methodologies. However, short-term CBPR is a sprint, rather than a marathon; although shorter in duration, it is more intensive. It requires significant methodological commitments, flexibility, and an intensified workload for those involved.
... Although benevolent sexism might seem less harmful, misunderstandings that it creates leave little room for a productive dialogue. This dynamics can explain challenges that educators who teach about gender inequalities regularly face (Carillo, 2007;Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Young, Mountford & Skrla, 2006). ...
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In this paper, we analyzed college students’ perceptions of their experiences with sexism through the frameworks of the benevolent sexism theory and the theory of system justification. These theories describe the complexity of sexism and explain obstacles of dealing with it in the modern Western world. We qualitatively analyzed students’ responses to an open-ended question about sexism on their campuses. While many informants did describe sexism as a problem, others indicated that it is not important. Respondents displayed negative emotions that often took the form of blame directed both ways. There were almost no responses describing the complexity of the dynamics of the modern sexism, which the theories of system justification and ambivalent sexism highlight. We conclude that the subtle nature of the modern sexism combined with people’s reluctance to empathize with the other side (whether they are negatively affected by sexism or not) contribute to the persistence of sexism in the modern world.
... Feminist pedagogies, used in the plural to signify a range of approaches, are fragmented and continually developing, resisting a concrete definition, and enacted in different spaces. However, they share a common goal in redefining pedagogical power and valuing student experiences, voices and diversity; they reconceptualise the classroom as a space for change, activism and social justice; they stress the importance of recognising female role models and the theoretical perspectives of women; and offer ways of challenging patriarchal paradigms in education (Shrewsbury 1987;hooks 1994;Morley 1998;Crabtree and Sapp 2003;McCusker 2017). Strategies to achieve this include group work, student-led discussion and linking personal experiences to curriculum content (hooks 1994). ...
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Gender equity in Australian schooling is no longer the policy focus that it once was. Within the contemporary secondary schooling system, teachers can find it challenging to enact feminist pedagogies. Using a narrative approach, we explore the experiences of two secondary teachers in Queensland. These teachers articulate the realities of using feminist pedagogies in a time dominated by reactionary politics and market-based schooling. Their stories suggest that their use of feminist pedagogies: is shaped by their feminist identities; has made them attuned to the gender politics of their school context; and can generate safe classroom spaces. The struggles and successes that they describe, as well as the confrontations and uncertainties that they face, reveal that while not easy, it is possible to utilise feminist pedagogies in a time of backlash.
... I see this as a shared pedagogical principle between these trainers that shows some parallel with feminist pedagogy. Research on feminist pedagogy emerges mainly from the educational field, and although this literature is diverse, there are some key unifying features ( Hoffmann and Stake 1998;Manicom 1992;Crabtree and Sapp 2003;Stake and Hoffmann 2000). Manicom (1992: 365) describes feminist peda- gogy as a specific orientation to knowledge: "the standpoint of a feminist teacher is political: to develop feminist analyses that inform/reform teachers' and students' ways of acting in and on the world. ...
Article
This paper explores the application of intersectionality in gender+ training. I present findings from research on the translation and transfer of feminist and gender knowledges, drawing from in-depth interviews with gender trainers working in Europe and internationally across private, public and civil society contexts. I outline the use of intersectionality by trainers as a theoretical, analytical and methodological paradigm. These equality actors call for historicization, a recouping of the genealogy of intersectionality and increased attention to the interrelation of systems of power and oppression over time. I apply an emic approach to intersectionality in training scenarios. This is grounded in responsiveness to workshop participants and is supported through affective connection and participatory learning. Dialogue between intersectional subject positions, including that of the trainer, is key to processes of knowledge exchange, reflexivity and social change. Finally, I consider the implications of these insights for engaged pedagogy and transformation oriented praxis.
... We wonder what it means to train a (young) person to move into this space, marked by enthusiasm and deep pleasure, yet treacherous and often quite 'dirty'. As many queer and feminist scholars have long argued, teaching students about feminism and sexuality in the USA may be arduous, complicated, and taxing in ways that differ from what our peers may be teaching (Crabtree and Sapp, 2003;Halperin, 2002;Sprague and Massoni, 2005). Clarissa Smith wrote, 'Many students perceive me as the lecturer who gets wheeled in to teach the ''naughty bits'', when they can just ''relax'' and enjoy me talking about dildos and the community functions of ''dogging'' [public sex] sites ' (2009: 570). ...
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For those entering the field of sexuality studies, there is often little advice or guidance on the many facets of the work, some of which are pleasurable and some of which are dangerous. Drawing from our personal and professional conflicts surrounding our work as feminist psychologists and sociologists studying women’s sexuality, we extend Carole Vance’s (1984) claims about pleasure and danger by arguing that, for the sex researcher, pleasure and danger are in fact inverted. That which should give us pleasure (e.g. having our work promoted to the public; teaching critical material about sexuality; thinking deeply about our personal relationships) ends up feeling dangerous, and that which should feel dangerous (e.g. saying and doing and working on taboo things; calling out homophobia, racism, classism, and sexism) ends up giving us pleasure. We examine several areas where we experience personal and professional costs and benefits of doing feminist sex research, including relationships with partners, communication with research participants, pedagogical challenges and conflicts, the interface between the sex-researcher identity and university/institutional practices, and, finally, our interface with the public world and the mass media. In doing so, we aim to use our personal experiences to highlight just a few of the areas that emerging sexuality researchers may encounter. In addition, we extend Vance’s framework of pleasure and danger beyond the experiences of women having sex and into the realm of those seeking to understand, research, write about, theorize, and assess the complicated terrain of women’s sexuality.
... 173). Crabtree and Sapp (2003) discuss their experiences applying feminist pedagogy to the college classroom in an attempt to empower students and disrupt traditional power relations. Their strategies include asking students to co-design a course syllabus, reconfiguring the historical emphasis on letter grades, and teaching feminist content in courses outside of explicitly gender and feminist studies courses. ...
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This study details the design of library instruction sessions for undergraduate students that intended to encourage critical source evaluation and the questioning of established authorities, and appraises these instructional aims through a thematic analysis of 148 artifacts containing student responses to group and individual activities. The authors found a widespread reliance on traditional indicators of academic and scholarly authority, though some students expressed more personal or complex understandings of source evaluation, trustworthiness, and authorship. Based on the findings, recommendations are made for academic librarians interested in promoting learners’ senses of agency and authority. © 2017, Communications in Information Literacy. All rights reserved.
... From my perspective, social change towards more democratic classroom spaces was a primary goal of feminist pedagogy. It was necessary for moving beyond schools as training grounds for obedience to authority (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003) and for helping students form a community of support essential for breaking patterns of domination and subordination in learning to be teachers. In authentic democratic teaching and learning, those in silenced, marginalized, oppressed, subordinate positions must be enabled to speak and build solidarity so they no longer occupy such status. ...
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For five years I taught diversity courses to undergraduate and graduate elementary teacher education students in the middle of the Bible Belt (the hub of socially conservative evangelical Protestantism in the Southeastern United States).
... These social workers also share with feminists their action orientation. In feminist circles, the most common expression of this orientation is the political aim of the liberation, emancipation, and empowerment of women (Fonow and Cook 1991:6;Crabtree and Sapp 2003;Campbell and Fonow 2009;Crabtree, Sapp and Licona 2009). Focusing on the equality of all individuals, the social workers' objective is social change through the empowerment of minority youth and advocacy through outreach and public awareness campaigns. ...
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... Students learn computer skills, online communication skills, online team-work skills, as well as learning to take responsibility for selflearning. The online environment also allows the teacher to adopt approaches in critical pedagogy where the teacher is not so much the person in authority but more like another learner within the group (Crabtree and Sapp 2003). ...
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... (Housee 2001: 82) Sometimes some men find it easier to practise feminist pedagogy than some women do. Crabtree and Sapp (2003) describe how the first author (white, bisexual and female) encountered much more student resistance to her authority, class content and grading practices than did the second author (white, heterosexual and male). Mauthner (n/d) points out that women academics, particularly feminist ones, carry out more than their fair share of 'emotional labour' in higher education. ...
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This article evaluates the actual impact and potential implications of feminist pedagogy for Religious Studies in universities and Religious Education in schools. It is based on the authors’ experience in the UK, including some international comparisons, with a focus on teaching and learning from a feminist perspective. Applying Grimmitt’s threefold model of pedagogy as encompassing aims and content as well as method, this article examines the evidence and extent of change in curricula both in universities and in schools in order to identify where change is required and what that change might be. It demonstrates how feminist pedagogy challenges Religious Studies and Religious Education to rethink their content, methods and aims in a variety of ways, pointing to significant advances and areas yet to be addressed. In so doing, it takes account of diverse feminist voices, other pedagogical priorities and other issues surrounding sex, gender and sexuality that challenge the category of the feminine and the appropriateness of a gendered analysis.
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There is a question that lingers in my work as a Women’s and Gender Studies academic: what might it mean to live a feminist life in relation to the philosophies, politics and performativities of feminist pedagogy? On certain days it manifests as a call to arms to be attentive to and act ‘willfully’ upon the ways in which feminist politics manifests itself in our work as teachers and learners.
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This chapter explores the challenge of creating a "liberated" classroom, one that digresses from the norm in both content and structure according to feminist principles. This teaching project was designed to create a unique learning environment through the use of black feminist pedagogy. Charged with teaching a cross-listed course (Women's Studies, Black Studies) entitled "Black Feminist Theory," the teaching team consisted of a professor, a graduate student, and an undergraduate student. The team came together from a diversity of educational experiences in the U.S. and Africa. This chapter is a reflection of the team's experiences co-teaching a "nontraditional" course as well as a collective inquiry about the strategic importance of incorporating oppositional discourse into the college curriculum.
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This essay offers our interpretation of, and commitment to, socially just, anti-oppressive, feminist-informed pedagogies, and describes our attempts to realize these values as predominantly “white” women teaching in an undergraduate university. We focus our discussion on how feminist and anti-oppressive practices serve as lenses through which we facilitate (and have team-taught) an undergraduate service-learning Practicum-Capstone course in the Department of Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies (SMF) at a small, liberal arts, Catholic, undergraduate university. We will illustrate how several themes congruent with post-structural feminist pedagogies play out in this Practicum-Capstone course. On one level, we are a work-in-progress—continuously working on becoming teachers who practise in ways that are congruent with the social justice and feminist ideologies we embrace. On another level, we engage in a political process (hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 37; Manicom, 365) by creating a learning community in which students and instructors are invited to engage in dialogues, activities, and assignments that require all of us to critically analyze and challenge ourselves and one another on our positioning and practice as learners, educators, and responsible citizens. As ongoing learners ourselves, we include in this chapter our reflections on the challenges associated with performing our identities as “white” women, post-structural feminists, and critical pedagogues in this university classroom, and our efforts to move alongside our students, and each other, through the teaching and learning processes.
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This article challenges the transgressive possibilities of trying to create feminist classrooms, and utilizing feminist approaches to teaching undergraduate social science courses that are jointly offered with women's studies in one Canadian university. Drawing on qualitative in‐depth interviews with 22 respondents, the article explores the difficult terrain of implementing feminist pedagogical approaches, when one considers such things as: the spatial organization of lecture halls, class sizes, faculty approaches to power/authority, departmental resources and the evaluation mechanisms of faculty members.
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In this article, Lilia Bartolome argues that the current focus on finding the right "methods" to improve the academic achievement of students who have historically been oppressed hides the less visible but more important reasons for their performance: the asymmetrical power relations of society that are reproduced in the schools, and the deficit view of minority students that school personnel uncritically, and often unknowingly, hold. Bartolome argues instead for a humanizing pedagogy that respects and uses the reality, history, and perspectives of students as an integral part of educational practice. Discussing two approaches in particular that show promise when implemented within a humanizing pedagogical framework — culturally responsive education and strategic teaching — Bartolome emphasizes the need for teachers' evolving political awareness of their relationship with students as knowers and active participants in their own learning.
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In this article, Kathleen Weiler presents a feminist critique that challenges traditional Western knowledge systems. As an educator, Weiler is interested in the implications of this critique for both the theory and practice of education. She begins with a discussion of the liberatory pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the profound importance of his work. She then questions Freire's assumption of a single kind of experience of oppression and his abstract goals for liberation. A feminist pedagogy, she claims, offers a more complex vision of liberatory pedagogy. Weiler traces the growth of feminist epistemology from the early consciousnessraising groups to current women's studies programs. She identifies three ways that a feminist pedagogy, while reflecting critically on Freire's ideas, also builds on and enriches his pedagogy: in its questioning of the role and authority of the teacher; in its recognition of the importance of personal experience as a source of knowledge; and in its exploration of the perspectives...
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ABSTRACT We are living in times of change and uncertainty, where many groups are challenging existing structures. Challenges to education have come from postmodernists and poststructuralists, calling into question previously held beliefs and ideologies, and from people from a variety of cultural and ethnic groups, examining the relationship of the oppressed and the exploited to educational structures. Through consideration of the work of Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire, considered to be liberatory and radical, I will consider ways in which their work might inform feminist theory, but also consider how feminists in turn have built on their work, considering new levels of insight. I will call for feminist perspectives to be interwoven with the already rich and valuable ideas of educationists such as Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux to enable us all-women and men-to move towards a feminist pedagogy of change.
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This article presents an argument for and offers illustrations of service learning in technical communication courses and curricula. Alongside traditional internships that prepare students as future employees, service learning provides students with an education in engaged citizenship. This article reviews service-learning literature, discussing specifically the advantages of projects to students, faculty, and the community. The authors also describe three projects in which instructors and students integrated service learning and technical communication in innovative ways.
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This essay articulates two distinct sources for the set of teaching practices that have come to be called “feminist pedagogy.” The separate contributions of liberation pedagogy and of feminist theories of women's development are described. It is argued that neither approach taken by itself is adequate to produce a feminist pedagogy that fully challenges the androcentric universals of conventional teaching practices. By synthesizing the two approaches, however, feminist pedagogy can be developed in a way that will have a strong influence on contemporary education.
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A Marxist educator argues that democracy, social justice, and identity are radically eroded by modern globalized "hypercapitalism," and that standardization and routinization of culture has had serious, unfortunate consequences for students, teachers, texts, and societies. He proposes that critical pedagogy is one means of addressing this trend. (MSE)
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An experiment was conducted to determine if behavior that deviated from gender stereotypes during initial interaction produced less positive perceptions of a target than did behavior conforming to stereotype. Thirty-seven males and 38 females (targets) were randomly assigned to conditions where they either enacted a behavior stereotypical to their gender or engaged in a behavior departing from the stereotype during initial interaction with a randomly assigned different-gender stranger (perceiver). All of the participants were raised in the United States. The majority of participants were Caucasian, approximately 30% of the participants were Hispanic. The participants were predominantly middle class. The gender stereotypical condition required the female target to ask questions and the male target to talk about himself during the interaction. A second condition required male and female targets to do the reverse (female tell and male ask). Following the interaction perceivers completed measures of positive affect and social attractiveness. The results indicated that perceptions of targets engaging in behavior opposite of gender stereotypes depend on the perceiver's level of gender-schematicity. The level of gender schematicity indicates a person's tendency to depend on traditional gender stereotypes. While schematics tended to feel less positively or no differently during interactions with gender opposite versus gender norm targets, they tended to evaluate the gender opposite target as more or no differently socially attractive than gender norm targets. Results also suggest that men may have more latitude to engage in gender opposite behaviors than do women.
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A major lacuna in second language education is its divorce from broader issues in educational theory. While this same point was made last year in this journal by White [Curriculum studies and ELT. System17, 83–93 (1989)], his work ironically also demonstrates a lack of understanding of some basic issues in curriculum philosophy. White misrepresents some key ideological aspects and is thus able to reject the work of many more radical educators, and to adopt Skilbeck's limited model for curriculum development. The nature of second language education, however, requires us to understand our educational practice in broader social, cultural, and political terms, and it is to critical pedagogy that I think we could most profitably turn to extend our conception of what we are doing as language teachers.
Breaking the silence: Addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues in the classroom
  • R Crabtree