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Fall 2022, CairoLab

FEMINIST PEDAGOGY LAB

FEMINIST PEDAGOGY LAB
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Course details

Cycle
Fall 2022, Cairo
Length
12 weeks
Format
In person
Taught in
English

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About the course

Here we explore how education manifesting in an institution, a curriculum, or a teacher weaves into a broader gendered social and cultural practice. Through a feminist lens, we look back at our schooling and tertiary education to record memories in retrospective diaries. We will explore different angles to how education can engage with gender through adopting pedagogies, nurturing relationships in learning spaces, actualizing teachers’ agency, and recognizing existing power and privileges.

We will follow a reading circle format with readings divided amongst us in preparation for the session then discussed in rotational groups to then share core insights and commentary in a whole group.

Throughout, we (can) work towards a final project that we enjoy individually, in pairs or small groups.

Who teaches it

  • Naela has been working in the education field for about ten years with the bulk of her experience in primary classroom settings. Naela holds a master’s degree in education and globalisation from the University of Oulu in Finland where she completed her thesis on sexual harassment prevention in schools with a focus on feminist pedagogy and teacher agency. Her current research interests involve feminist approaches to curricular planning, compassionate classroom communities and sustainability in learning environments.

Course flow

Sessions without a date

  • Meeting each other

    Looking back: how much do we remember? ‘Retrospective diaries’

    Course flow and group norms

    Reading circles and reading journals

    Looking forward: discussing the final project

  • Theory and social change

    The violence of education

    Privileges and intersectionality in learning spaces

  • Curriculum as a discourse

    The null curriculum, what isn’t being said?

  • Gendered by design, what did we believe about ourselves from being at school?

    Implicit curriculum, what’s the culture around teaching?

    Successful girls

  • Feminist pedagogy as critical pedagogy and relation to others

    Democratic participation and emancipation

  • Integrating feminism in teaching: four orientations

    Centering women with non-neutrality: voice and content

    Unique classrooms, unique goals

  • Teacher identities and agency

    Caring relations in learning spaces

  • The children, adolescents and adults classrooms

  • (space to work on projects, dive into group’s interest and/or invite a guest)

  • Digital pedagogy

    Allyship and activism as co-education

  • Towards compassion with compassion

    Moral education?

    Education and hope

  • Project presentations, course feedback and reflections from reading journals

Course reading list

  • Teaching in environments of resistance: Toward a critical, feminist, and antiracist pedagogyBell, S., Morrow, M. & Tastsoglou, E. (1999). In Mayberry, M. & Rose, E. C. (Eds) Meeting the challenge: innovative feminist pedagogies in action (pp. 23-46). Routledge.
  • Examining gender and classroom teaching practicesCarinci, S. (2007). In Gender Identity, Equity, and Violence: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Through Service Learning.
  • Introduction — feminist pedagogies in action: Teaching beyond DisciplinesCrawley, S. L., Lewis, J. E. & Mayberry, M. (2008). Feminist Teacher, 19(1), 1-12.
  • Uncovering Our Feminist Pedagogy: A co/autoethnographyCoiaa, L. & Taylor, M. (2013). Studying Teacher Education. 9 (1). 3–17.
  • Re/theorising gender: female masculinity and male femininity in the classroom?Francis, B. (2010). Gender and Education. 22 (5). 477-490.
  • Teaching for social justice education: the intersection between identity, critical agency, and social justice educationFrancis, D. & Le Roux, A. (2011). South African Journal of Education. 31. 299-311.
  • Editorial introduction: gender and sexuality taking up space in schoolingFields, J. & Payne, E. (2016). Sex Education. 16 (1). 1-7.
  • The null curriculum: Its theoretical basis and practical implicationsFlinders, D. J., Noddings, N. & Thornton, S. J. (1986). Curriculum Inquiry. 16 (1). 33-42.
  • Women in teaching: Participation, power and possibilityGaskell, J. & Mullen, A. L. (2006). In Skelton, C., Francis, B. & Smulyan, L. (Eds.) The Sage Handbook of Gender and Education (pp. 453-468). Sage Publications.
  • The second side of education: Prosocial developmentHiggins-D’Alessandro, A. (2012). In Brown, P. M., Corrigan, M. W. & Higgins-D'Alessandro, A. (Eds) Handbook of Prosocial Education.
  • Feminist education for critical consciousnesshooks, b. (2000). In Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics (pp. 19-24). South End Press.
  • Paulo Freirehooks, b. (1994). In Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom (pp. 45-58). Routledge.
  • Crossing borders and changing pedagogies: From Giroux and Freire to feminist theories of educationJackson, S. (1997). Gender and Education. 9 (4). 457-468.
  • Just us, just discussing: imagined homogeneities in the Gender Studies classroomKarlsson, L. (2015). Gender and Education. 27 (6). 654-665.
  • Text and discourse in education: An introduction to critical discourse analysisLuke, A. (1995). Review of Research in Education. 21.
  • The relevance of theory to the safe schools movementMcEvoy, A. (1999). Education and Urban Society. 31(3). 275-285.
  • The promise of freedom and the regulation of gender — feminist pedagogy in the 1970sMcleod, J. (1998). Gender and Education. 10 (4). 431–445.
  • The hidden curriculum: An overviewMeighan, R. & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (1997). In A Sociology of Educating (3 ed.) (pp. 65-76). London, United Kingdom: Cassell.
  • Caring: A feminine approach to ethics & moral educationNoddings, N. (1984). University of California Press.
  • You can’t criticize what you don’t understand: Teachers as social change agents in neo-liberal timesO’Sullivan, M. (2008). Brock Education. 17.
  • Digital feminist pedagogy and post-truth misogynyRingrose, J. (2018). Teaching in Higher Education. 23 (5). 647-656.
  • Successful girls? Complicating post-feminist, neoliberal discourses of educational achievement and gender equalityRingrose, J. (2007). Gender and Education. 19 (4). 471-489.
  • Anarchic ThinkingStenstad, G. (1988). Hypatia, 3(2), 87–100.
  • Teach feminist: Pedagogy, politics, and process in women’s studiesUppal, J. & English, H. (2005). Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies. 5 (1). 30-44.
  • Education and hopeVlieghe, J. (2019). Ethics and Education.
  • Freire and a feminist pedagogy of differenceWeiler, K. (1991). Harvard Educational Review. 61 (4). 449-475.
  • Out of the Ruins: Feminist Pedagogy in RecoveryWeiner, G. (2006). In Skelton, C., Francis, B. & Smulyan, L. (Eds.) The Sage Handbook of Gender and Education (pp. 79-92). SAGE Publications.
  • Hidden Curriculum of Violence: Affect, Power, and Policing the BodyWozolek, B. (2020). Educational Studies. 56 (3). 269-285.

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