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

Poststructural feminist pedagogy in English instruction of vocational-and-technical education

“…The research results show that VTE college students, especially female students, who underwent the poststructural feminist instruction exhibited better learning achievement than those under the traditional lecturing instruction in the areas of listening, vocabulary, grammar, and reading. The results correspond with the previous research in that when students are empowered to find their own voices and when the material they are studying is relevant and connected to their lives, they can get involved in shaping the content of what is to be learned (Crabtree and Sapp 2003;Epstein 1995;Ropers-Huilman 2003). Unlike a traditional banking class, in which with only single authoritative voices, the pedagogies are used as a tool for the reproduction of the existing professional hierarchy and societal power systems (Freire 1970;hooks 1989;Maher and Tetreault 1994), the study reveals that with the promotion of ''doublevoiced'' or ''multiple-voiced'' discourses, in which both the teacher and students would not strictly adhere to their own viewpoints but instead perceive different stances and different voices, students can hence get into to the knowledge construction and shape the content of what is to be learned.…”

“…Consequently, the students in the experimental group can generate a higher level of critical thinking, by using their own methods and forms of organization. The research results correspond with the previous research (Crabtree and Sapp 2003;Criswell and Criswell 2004;Tuckman 1991) illustrating that when students are empowered, they can show their capacity to organize, synthesize and express knowledge. As Walstad and Becker say (1994) that when being situated in a class in which students can freely express their own idea, demonstrating the interrelationship among these ideas, students are offered the chance to generate responses having the potential to show their originality and to lead a greater understanding of the topic.…”

“…Therefore the students in the experimental group had greater student satisfaction. As Freire (1970) and Crabtree and Sapp (2003) manifest that the dialogical interaction becomes a way of sharing power and opening communication between instructors and students in the poststructural feminist class, in which teacher-student relationship is much more like a democratic co-learning relationship (Crabtree and Sapp 2003;Freire 1970). However, for male student satisfaction, the results in instructional objective, instructional material/method, teacher's qualities, and assessment were not significantly different.…”

Exploring the relevance of feminist pedagogy to community psychology: continuing the dialogue

“…Furthermore, all strands of feminist pedagogy address knowledge construction and ''voice, authority and positionalityy'' (Tisdell, 1998, p. 140), while encouraging a reflexive approach in classroom interactions (Crabtree & Sapp, 2003;Tisdell). In sum, an orientation toward social action and practice allows for a natural engagement with students in which critical consciousness-raising may be imbued further with the qualities of relationality, reflexivity, empathy, and holistic attention to the multidimensional and situated aspects of individual lives-classical tools of feminist theory and practice.…”

Teaching and Un-Teaching Source Evaluation: Questioning Authority in Information Literacy Instruction

“…Reflecting on this experience, Brubaker writes, "Confronting students' deeply rooted familiarity with authoritarian teaching practices helped create an important foundation for constructing relations of democratic authority in the course" (p. 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.…”