Feminist Pedagogy Literature Review: Creating an Empowering, Gender Inclusive Learning Environment

Feminist Pedagogy:

Creating an Empowering, Gender Inclusive Learning Environment

Tiffany Hamilton

Ball State University

EDAC 634

Creating an Empowering and Gender Inclusive Learning Environment

Tiffany Hamilton	Commented On

Introduction:

Feminist Pedagogy has many different models, just as there are numerous varieties and focuses of feminism.  Maher (1987) described two primary classes; liberatory models which focus on how feminist educators bring awareness to oppression, power and privilege through enable women to find their voices and speak up about what their life experiences have been like and their perspectives (as cited in Merriem, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). By bringing forth the female perspective, we are able to shed light on societal norms that create oppression based on gender, race and class and how the structure of most institutions, including the classroom, perpetuate power struggles and hierarchies that exist in our day to day lives.

Gender models are focused on societal expectations of the one that identifies as female as that of the nurturer, and empowering women to break these stereotypes if so desired, and to find their voice (Merrien, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).  Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) emphasize the importance of breaking the barriers to education and making the connections with their life experiences, creating a voice and an individual identity other than the female gender; overcoming the fear of sharing their ideas publicly and facing ridicule.  We must also resist the norm of associating gender as male and female by educating ourselves on gender norms and how the societal norms and structures have created an oppressive world for everyone and not just women who were assigned the female gender at birth, creating an inclusive and empowering learning environment for all people whom have faced discrimination based on their gender.

General Themes: https://images.app.goo.gl/xNrF3zbVeefnnBoT8

            Cox describes psychic safety and psychic strength are two prominent themes in feminist pedagogy and are the primary aspects of epistemophilia.  Psychic safety is a way to protect the psych from anxiety by using knowledge or ignorance; creating a perceived control over the environment so they do not experience what one feels to be threat.  Psychic safety is achieved by an obsessive desire to learn about a certain topic and then maintaining this knowledge in a rigid and unadaptable way.  Psychic safety can even be part of societal norms, placing a stigma or creating an embarrassment over things like sexuality, disabilities, substance use disorders, traumatic events and even something as universal as bodily functions (Cox).

            Psychic strength is developed by the learning actively and willingly participating in learning and knowledge seeking with an open mind and willingness to learn without the perceived threat of destroying their current sense of self. Cox describes psychic strength of the ability to not know and remaining open to new ideals, experiences, opportunities and ways of thinking.  Psychic strength is essentially the ability to just be.  Psychic strength is the desire to actively seek knowledge and understanding-- a love of learning.

            Another theme is that women, and all whom do not identify as heterosexual men, especially white men, can find their voice and their inner strength and the feminist pedagogy provides a venue that we may do so.  Throughout the country and the world, women have been pushed into societal norms and expectations that are often oppressive sometimes dangerous.

Implications:

Reflections:

            Highlights: I have so much to learn and believe I can contribute to feminist pedagogy and the empowering of women and those whom are marginalized in society based on their gender, race, and class.

            Process:  My process for reflections consisted primarily of great self-reflection of my experience as a woman and also my admitted ignorance on gender.  I was able to identify ways that I have felt oppressed without realizing what it was and how I lost my voice after becoming a mother; only recently beginning to find it again with the start of the Adult and Community Education Master’s program.  As I read through the articles and papers I was a bit overwhelmed my how much I don’t know and spent a lot of time googling different terms and learning.

Table:

The main themes (The ideas summarized from the literature)	Implications (How to apply the main ideas in practice)
Theme 1: “[P]ersonal involvement is more than dangerous bias—it is the condition under which people come to know each other and to admit others into their lives” (Oakley, 1981, p. 58).	Personal involvement creates a more open and productive learning environment and promotes greater self-reflection.  Theoretically, yes, and says it goes against masculine approach that they are completely separate or is it perpetuating the female stereotype that we can not differentiate professional and personal—fueling “emotional” stereotypes?? Or do I question this as a result of the United States’ patriarchal society? “And yet I’m not sure whether allowing the intimate into the classroom really does disrupt the boundaries of the public and the private in a politically positive way. Sometimes it just moves the boundaries, so that either the personal expands to fill the space available, or the public infiltrates the private disguised as friendship: the wolf in sheep’s clothing.” (Broughton & Potts, 2001, p. 380
Theme 2: five principles of feminist pedagogy; each of these principles “contributes to the creation of a collaborative learning experience that is the goal of contemporary feminist pedagogy”(p.68).	“These principles are the reformation of the relationship between professor and student; empowerment; building community; respect for the diversity of personal experience; challenging traditional views. Each of these principles contests the hierarchical divisionsofteacher/studentandseekstoreaddressthepowerimbalancesthatcreateclassroom ‘dictators’.”
Theme 3: Psychic Safety and Psychic Strength	Being open to new ways of thinking and the ability to just be, without requiring to know and understand everything within the world in order to be comfortable.  Without these qualities, feminist pedagogy becomes rigid in whatever the teacher’s perception of feminist theory is—resulting in marginalization of certain groups: LGBTQ non-binary, women with disabilities, of color
Theme 4:

References

Broughton, T. L. & Potts, L. (2001) Dissonant voices: the teachers ‘personal’ in women’s studies, Gender and Education, 13(4), pp. 373–385.

Browne, K. (November 2005). Placing the personal in pedagogy: Engaged pedagogy in ‘feminist’ geographical teaching.  UK Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29(3), 339-354. doi: 10.1080/03098260500290900

Cox, P. (March 2010).  Epistemophilia: Rethinking feminist pedagogy.  Australian Feminist     Studies, 25(63). doi: 10.1080/08164640903499745 EPISTEMOPHILIA

De Welde, K., Foote, N., Hayford, M., & Rosenthal, M. Team teaching “gender perspectives”: A reflection on feminist pedagogy in the interdisciplinary classroom.

Fuller, L., Russo. A. (2016). Feminist pedagogy: Building community accountability.  Feminist Teacher 26(2-3), 179-197. doi: 10.5406/femteacher.26.2-3.0179 Retrieved from https://www-jstor-org.proxy.bsu.edu/stable/10.5406/femteacher.26.2-3.0179

Nordmarken, S. (2019).  Queering Gendering: Trans epistemologies and the disruption and production of gender accomplishment.  Practices Feminist, 45(1).

Roher, J. (July 2018). ‘It's in the room’: Reinvigorating feminist pedagogy, contesting neoliberalism, and trumping post-truth populism. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(5), 576-592. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2018.1455656