Critical+Pedagogies+&+Feminist+Pedagogies+-+Adversaries,+Allies,+Other?

What does Paolo Freire mean for those of us who define ourselves as feminist educators? How can feminist educators imagine themselves as actors in the Freirean world? (Weiler, 1991, p. 67).

Some areas of concern articulated by feminists (related to pedagogy):


 * 1) Authority of the teacher – teachers hold authority because of their race, gender, historical/institutional work. Weiler states, “The authority of the feminist teacher as intellectual and theorist finds expression in the goal of making students themselves theorists of their own lives by interrogating and analyzing their own experience” (p. 462). Comparable to Freire’s conscientization. Freire describes a “transparent” teacher, feminists take this one step further and acknowledge almost a competitive aspect (issues of access, etc.)
 * 2) Who holds knowledge and truth? Both Freirean and feminist scholars acknowledge the role of personal experience as a source for knowledge and truth. Importance of recognizing feelings and experiences as a guide to analysis and action. Relates to Freire – use the experiences of peasants and their landlord as the basis of their education.
 * 3) Questions of difference – challenging the universal experience of “woman”, particularly from postmodernism and women of color.
 * 4) Concerns about equity and social justice. Assumes that knowledge and culture are imbedded in relations of power. (Connected with Freire.)

Cherland & Harper (2007). Radical counternarratives in literacy research: Feminist and Queer Theories. From //Advocacy research in literacy education//. Olesen, V. (2011). Feminist qualitative research in the milleunnium's first decade. In the //Handbook of Qualitative Research.// p. 129-146. Kathleen Weiler, “Freire and a Feminist Pedagogy of Difference,” //Harvard Educational Review// 61, no. 4 (November 1991): 449-74.

Four Issues around analysis/discourse of Critical and Feminist Pedagogy


 * 1) Ambiguities around "PEDAGOGY" - What is it?
 * Pedagogy as the process of knowledge production. Two aspects:
 * The pedagogy argued FOR
 * The pedagogy of the ARGUMENT
 * 1) Fragmentation with Feminist and Critical Discourses
 * Many commonalities between the two
 * Student experience and voice
 * Assert the objectives of self and social empowerment towards broader social transformation
 * Speak out about teachers’ authority and struggle with contradictions of authority and transformation
 * Linked to political and social movements that seek to ease oppression and suggest similar classroom practices
 * If there are so many commonalities – why the disconnect?
 * Feminist unable to locate themselves in critical literacy
 * Dynamics between men and women?
 * Dynamics between men and women?


 * 1) Institutional locations of these discourses – academy and schools

Gore, J.M. (1993). //The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth//. New York and London: Routledge hooks, like Paulo Freire, sees education as the practice of freedom. Profoundly influenced by Freire, she sees his ideas as affirming her "right as a subject in resistance to define reality." (//Teaching to Trangress//, p. 53). For hooks: "teaching is a performative act... that offers the space for change, invention, spontaneous shifts, that can serve as a catalyst drawing out the unique elements in each classroom." (//Ibid//, p. 11) [] ||= Nel Noddings - Dewey
 * 1) Marginality of critical and feminist pedagogy discourses as they seem to only minimally impact mainstream educational policy and practice and teacher education
 * Two Strands of Feminist Research ||
 * Instructional aspects of Pedagogy – more from Women’s Studies || Feminisms - more from Educational Research ||
 * = bell hooks – influenced by Friere

Nel Noddings is closely identified with the promotion of the ethics of care, - the argument that caring should be a foundation for ethical decision-making. Her first major work //Caring// (1984) explored what she described as a 'feminine approach to ethics and moral education'. Her argument starts from the position that care is basic in human life - that all people want to be cared for (Noddings 2002: 11). She also starts from the position that while men and women are guided by an ethic of care, 'natural' caring - 'a form of caring that does not require an ethical effort to motivate it (although it may require considerable physical and mental effort in responding to needs)' can have a significant basis in women's experience //(ibid//.: 2). 'Natural caring', thus, is a moral attitude - 'a longing for goodness that arises out of the experience or memory of being cared for' (Flinders 2001: 211). On this basis Nel Noddings explores the notion of ethical caring - 'a state of being in relation, characterized by receptivity, relatedness and engrossment' (//op. cit.//). Nel Noddings sees education (in its widest sense) as being central to the cultivation of caring in society. She defines education as 'a constellation of encounters, both planned and unplanned, that promote growth through the acquisition of knowledge, skills, understanding and appreciation' (Noddings 2002: 283). Given the above, it is not surprising that she places a special emphasis on the home as a site for educational encounter. Indeed, she views the home as the primary educator and argues for the re-orientation of social policy to this end. This is not to sideline the role of schools but simply to recognize just what the home contributes to the development of children and young people. [] ||

Lewinson //Creating Critical Classrooms// This book for elementary and middle school teachers and literacy methods courses articulates a powerful theory of critical literacy instruction. Critical literacy practices encourage students to use language to question the everyday world, interrogate the relationship between language and power, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. By providing both a model for critical literacy instruction and many examples of how critical practices can be enacted in daily school life in elementary and middle school classrooms, //Creating Critical Classrooms// meets a huge need for a practical, theoretically based text on this topic. || =Themes:= power relations, the crisis in representation, knowledge, bias, difference, voice, text, difference, deconstruction, praxis, ethics, responsibility, objectivity, narrative strategy, and situatedness
 * Two Strands of Critical Research ||
 * Articulation of a broader social vision || Explicit Instructional Practices ||
 * Giroux’s //Education and the Crisis of Public Values// examines American society's shift away from democratic public values, the ensuing move toward a market-driven mode of education, and the last decade's growing social disinvestment in youth. The book discusses the number of ways that the ideal of public education as a democratic public sphere has been under siege, including full-fledged attacks by corporate interests on public school teachers, schools of education, and teacher unions. It also reveals how a business culture cloaked in the guise of generosity and reform has supported a charter school movement that aims to dismantle public schools in favor of a corporate-friendly privatized system. The book encourages educators to become public intellectuals, willing to engage in creating a formative culture of learning that can nurture the ability to defend public and higher education as a general good - one crucial to sustaining a critical citizenry and a democratic society. || Freire

Some important researchers:

[|Patricia Lather]

[|Patricia Hill Colins]

[|Nel Noddings]

[|bell hooks]