Feminist pedagogy is a pedagogical framework grounded in feminist theory. It embraces a set of epistemological theories, teaching strategies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships. Feminist pedagogy, along with other kinds of progressive and critical pedagogy, considers knowledge to be socially constructed.
Overview
The purpose of feminist pedagogy is to create or remove standards in the classroom in ways that liberate students and their learning. For example, a classroom that is liberating and without any sort of binary. Feminist Pedagogy naturally creates a new method of teaching, where skills and knowledge are not just limited to a classroom but rather society as a whole. Classrooms that employ feminist pedagogy use the various and diverse experiences located within the space as opportunities to cultivate learning by using; life experiences as lessons, breaking down knowledge, and looking at gender, race, and class as one.
Feminist pedagogy addresses the power imbalances present in many westernized educational institutions and works toward de-centering that power. Within most traditional educational settings, the dominant power structure situates instructors as superior to students. Feminist pedagogy rejects this normative classroom dynamic, seeking to foster more democratic spaces functioning with the understanding that both teachers and students are subjects, not objects. Students are encouraged to reject normative positions of passivity and to instead take control of their own learning.
By taking action in their learning, students are encouraged to develop critical thinking and analytical skills. These abilities are then used to deconstruct and challenge the issues in our society such as, "oppressive characteristics of a society that has traditionally served the politically conservative and economic privileged."
The foundation of feminist pedagogy is grounded in 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. It identifies the practical applications of feminist theory, while promoting the importance of social change, specifically within the institutional hierarchy found in academia. Feminist pedagogy 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.
Atmosphere of Schools
Feminist pedagogy seeks to critique and correct perceived power imbalances between forms of hierarchical authority, such as educators and institutions, and students, who are believed to be typically granted much less social power and agency in the knowledge creation process. In this sense, feminist pedagogy aims to restructure traditional learning environments in favor of a communal and collaborative experience of education, which ultimately views students as equal contributors and sources of expertise.
The educational climate of schools, the result of dominant neoliberal competitive ideologies, does not prioritize communal processes of learning, research, and community action. Classroom power dynamics operating within neoliberal institutions exhibit a competitive style of engagement that employs fear and shame as a motivator for student growth. Traditional approaches to education maintain the status quo, reinforcing current power structures of domination. The "academic work process is essentially antagonistic to the working class, and academics, for the most part, live in a different world of culture, different ways that make it, too, antagonistic to working-class life." In contrast, feminist pedagogy rejects societal systems of oppression, recognizing and critiquing institutional and individual compliance associated with the academy that perpetuates larger ongoing societal oppression. The classroom is a microcosm of how power is disturbed and exercised in the larger society. "Students use subtle means to keep their vested power and attempt to enforce and replicate the status quo in the classroom."
Qualities of feminist pedagogy Critical pedagogy advances the idea that knowledge is not static and unitary but rather results from an open-ended process of negotiation and interaction between teacher and student. Feminist pedagogy, as an offshoot of critical pedagogy, further holds that gender plays a critical role in the classroom, influencing not only "what is taught, but how it is taught." 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." Feminist pedagogy aligns itself with many forms of critical pedagogy including those focused on race and ethnicity, class, post colonialism and globalization.
The introduction to the collection Feminist Pedagogy: Looking Back to Move Forward explained the qualities and distinctions from critical pedagogy:
Like Freire's liberatory 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.
Feminist pedagogy concerns itself with the examination of societal oppressions, working to dismantle the replication of them within the institutional settings. 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 those who are marginalized through strategies for empowering the self, building community, and ultimately developing leadership. Feminist pedagogy embodies a theory about knowledge transfer in the classroom by providing specific educational strategies, criteria, and techniques to meet the desired course goals or outcomes. Many distinctive qualities characterize feminist pedagogies and the instructional methods that arise out of feminist approaches. Of the associated attributes, some of the most prominent features include the development of reflexivity, critical thinking, personal and collective empowerment, the redistribution of power within the classroom setting, and active engagement in the processes of re-imaging. The critical skills fostered with the employment of a feminist pedagogical framework encourages recognition and active resistance to societal oppressions and exploitations. Also, feminist pedagogies position its epistemological inquiries within the context of social activism and societal transformation.
Reflectivity, essential to the execution of feminist pedagogy, allows students to examine the positions they occupy within society critically. Positions of privilege and marginalization are decoded, producing a theorization and greater understanding of one's multifaceted identity and the forces associated with the possession of a particular identity. Critical thinking is another quality of feminist pedagogy that is deeply interconnected with practices of reflectivity. The critical thinking encouraged by feminist pedagogy is firmly rooted in everyday lived experiences. Critical thinking is employed inside and outside of the classroom space to challenge dominant cultural narratives and structures.
Empowerment within the classroom setting is central to feminist pedagogical instructional techniques. Students are confirmed in their identities and experiences and are encouraged to share with the space personal understandings to build a diverse and intersectional base of knowledge. Classroom spaces that operate from within a feminist pedagogical framework value integrity of the participants and the collective respect of existing differences in experiences and knowledge. Validation of student realities fosters the development of individual talents and ability and solidification of group cohesion. Empowerment of the student body is achievable through the intentional dissemination of traditional classroom power relations. It is understood and central to the success and progression of the classroom space that power is shared throughout all its constituents. In traditional academic settings, the position of power is maintained through the authority exercised by the instructor. The structure of this power relation solely validates the teacher's experiences and knowledge, maintaining that students have little to offer in the facilitation of learning. 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 tool will utilize the process of decentering power, where the educator distances themselves from their authority status and enables their students to have equal footing with them. 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 to inform curriculum and classroom practices. The sharing of energy creates a space for dialogue that reflects the multiple voices and realities of the students. By sharing the power and promoting voice among students, the educator and students move to a more a democratic and respectful relationship that recognizes the production of knowledge by both parties. The shared power also decentralizes dominant traditional understandings of learning by allowing students to engage with the professor freely, instead of having the professor give students information.
Feminist pedagogical theorists not only question the current climate of the classroom but engage in speculations of what it could exist as. Understandings facilitated within the classroom space is not meant to live within the confines of academia but are encouraged to promote social activism. Theory and classroom explorations are positioned to their social contexts and implications. Students are encouraged to take what they learn in the classroom and apply their understandings to institute social change.
History