Feminist Research Methodologies — A Separate Paradigm? Notes for a Debate

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit Lentin
Keyword(s):  
Women's Studies ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Research Methodologies ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
And Gender

This paper has three central components. One, it examines the basic tenets of feminist research methodologies — the commitment to making visible women's lived experiences, to gender and gender relations as socially constructed and historicially specific, to reflexivity and the inclusion of the researcher and the research process as researchable topics, and to the emancipation of women —and argues that they constitute feminist research methodologies as a separate paradigm. Two, by describing the methodological choices made for my study of Israeli daughters of Holocaust survivors, it examines the discontents of feminist research methodologies and how we can address them. Three, by asking why so few published studies by Irish feminist sociologists and Women's Studies scholars have adhered to feminist research methodologies, it hopes to launch a debate about feminist research methodologies in Ireland.

scholarly journals Enacting Feminist Methodologies in Research Toward Reproductive Justice

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692110161
Author(s):  
Krista Johnston ◽  
Christiana MacDougall
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Related Services ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Political Praxis

Reporting on the development of an ongoing qualitative research project with clients of midwifery care in New Brunswick, Canada, this article details the ways that methodology is complexly interwoven with political praxis. Working through the development of this project, this article models one way to enact politically engaged feminist research at each stage of the research process, from developing the research question, through research design, data collection, analysis, and theory generation. In the process, three core principles of feminist research methodologies are extended: co-construction of knowledge, researcher reflexivity, and reciprocal relationships in research. This research is caught up in and responds to a fraught political context where supports for reproductive healthcare are limited, and midwifery, abortion, and gender-affirming care are all framed as “fringe” services that exceed the austerity budget of the province. Participants engaged in this study with a clear understanding of this political terrain and approached interviews as an opportunity to share their experiences, and to advocate for the continuation and expansion of midwifery and related services in the province. Through the research process, it has become evident that midwifery must be understood as part of the struggle toward reproductive justice in this province. These reflections will direct further stages of the project, including ongoing research and dissemination.

Performing Identities in the Classroom

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathie Friedman ◽  
Karen Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Women's Studies ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Classroom Dynamics ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Hybrid Character ◽  
And Gender

Teaching about intersecting, fluid and historically contingent identities has been taken up extensively within the sociology of race, class and gender and women's studies. Oddly, the case of Jewish women has been virtually left out of this robust literature. This article explores the challenges raised through teaching the course “Jewish Women in Contemporary America,” and links these challenges to the pedagogy of race, class and gender more broadly. Using the classroom as a research site, the authors conducted post-course interviews with students and kept detailed field notes on class sessions. The authors use Judith Butler's theorization of performativity to analyze classroom dynamics. After redesigning and teaching the course a second time, the authors conclude that the relationship between “experience” and “theory” must be constantly interrogated by both instructor and students; that personal narratives merit space within the classroom, but must be problematized; and a critical Jewish Women's Studies, based on illuminating the socially constructed and hybrid character of contemporary Jewish American women's identities, can help to expose the tendency to methodological essentialism still prevalent in much of the feminist race, class, and gender literature.

scholarly journals Políticas de educação infantil e relações de gênero: implicações para a formação docente na perspectiva da diversidade e da diferença / Child education policies and gender relations...

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Cleriston Izidro dos Anjos ◽  
Djenane Martins Oliveira ◽  
Marcia Aparecida Gobbi
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Academic Production ◽  
Child Education ◽  
And Gender

Neste artigo, procuramos problematizar os modos pelos quais as discussões concernentes às relações de gênero tem sido ou não consideradas nas políticas de educação infantil e, a partir disso, procuramos tecer algumas possíveis implicações para a formação docente na perspectiva da diversidade e da diferença. Embora haja produção acadêmica significativa referente à formação de docentes para a educação infantil, são escassos os trabalhos que tem discutido as questões de gênero nas políticas de educação de crianças pequenas e na formação de educadores/as para as infâncias. Ao considerar a categoria gênero nas discussões concernentes às infâncias, é possível colocar em causa as tradicionais assertivas sobre o que é “natural”, no sentido do que é inato e instintivo para cada um dos sexos, como contribuição para a necessária desnaturalização das diferenças entre homens e mulheres, entre meninas e meninos, considerando as diferenças. Torna-se necessário reconhecer que a escola não é neutra e, portanto, as escolhas curriculares e/ou metodológicas, seja nas instituições ou nas políticas públicas, revelam os aspectos na construção da percepção de gênero que são reforçados, interditados ou rechaçados.Palavras-chave: Educação infantil; Gênero; Políticas; Formação docente. ABSTRACT: In this article, we seek to problematize the ways in which discussions concerning gender relations have been considered in child education policies and, from this, we try to weave some possible implications for teacher education in the perspective of diversity and difference. Although there is significant academic production related to the training of teachers for early childhood education, there are few studies that have discussed gender issues in policies for the education of young children and the training of educators for children. In considering the gender category in discussions concerning childhood, it is possible to call into question the traditional assertions about what is "natural" in the sense of what is innate and instinctive for each of the sexes, as a contribution to the necessary denaturalization of the differences between men and women, between girls and boys, considering the differences. It is necessary to recognize that the school is not neutral and therefore the curricular and / or methodological choices, whether in institutions or public policies, reveal the aspects in the construction of the perception of gender that are reinforced, interdicted or rejected.Keywords: Early childhood education; Genre; Policies; Teacher training.

A Critical Response to Sara Scott's ‘Here be Dragons: Researching the Unbelievable, Hearing the Unthinkable. A Feminist Sociologist in Uncharted Territory’

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Huntington
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Academic Discourses

This paper offers a critique of Sara Scott's recent work, which provided an account of the research process as the author documents and analyses the experiences of survivors of organised sadistic abuse. [1] More specifically, it responds to Scott's assertion that acceptance of a ‘subtle’ realist epistemological stance offers an adequate base from which to make ‘truth’ claims. The difficulties around defining and defending the truth status of individuals’ accounts, in an emotionally charged context, are truncated within this framework. The ongoing struggle to work with the complexity of academic discourses, without denying the lived experiences of individuals, requires us to struggle with the tensions and contradictions even as we seek to make judgements about ‘truth’ claims that are inevitably socially constructed, situated and specific.

‘It's Easier that you're a Girl and that you're Asian’: Interactions of ‘Race’ and Gender between Researchers and Participants

2002 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Archer
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Discussion Group ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
White Female ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Female Author ◽  
And Gender

This article is concerned with the ways in which ‘race’ and gender interact between interviewers and participants within the research process and the implications of differences/similarities between researcher and participants for feminist research and analysis. The paper discusses issues of power and representation within a research project conducted by the white female author and two Asian female interviewers with 64 British Muslim young men and women. Based on analysis of discussion group data, it is argued that ‘race’ and gender interact between researchers and participants in highly complex and unpredictable ways to produce particular accounts, but comparative analysis of accounts produced with different interviewers can help reveal ‘hidden’ structures of power within the texts.

Identify This…

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Rebecca Bloom ◽  
Amanda Reynolds ◽  
Rosemary Amore ◽  
Angela Beaman ◽  
Gatenipa Kate Chantem ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Life History ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
Readers Theater ◽  
Creative Pedagogy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Selection Of

Readers theater productions are meaningful expressions of creative pedagogy in higher education. This article presents the script of a readers theater called Identify This… A Readers Theater of Women's Voices, which was researched, written, and produced by undergraduate and graduate students in a women's studies class called Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Section one of the article reproduces the script of Identify This that was based on life history interviews with a diverse selection of women to illustrate intersectional identities. Section two briefly describes the essential elements of the process we used to create and perform Identify This.

Frondeuses and Feminists in the Work of Arvède Barine (1840–1908)

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-112
Author(s):  
Whitney Walton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Relations ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
National Library ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
And Gender

This article examines Arvède Barine’s extensive and popular published output from the 1880s to 1908, along with an extraordinary cache of letters addressed to Barine and held in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of France. It asserts that in the process of criticizing contemporary feminist activists and celebrating the achievements of women, especially French women, in history, she constructed the historical and cultural distinctiveness of French women as an ideal blend of femininity, accomplishment, and independence. This notion of the French singularity, indeed the superiority of French women, resolved the contradiction between her condemnation of feminism as a transformation of gender relations and her support for causes and reforms that enabled women to lead intellectually and emotionally fulfilling lives. Barine’s work offers another example of the varied ways that women in Third Republic France engaged with public debates about women and gender.

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