scholarly journals Embracing Vulnerability and Risk in the Classroom: The Four-Folder Approach to Discussion-Based Community Learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-157
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Whittenburg Ozment
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Power Systems ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Instructional Strategy ◽  
Vocal Learning ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Favorable Conditions

In recognition of various power systems within and surrounding their classrooms, US women’s studies instructors have for several decades worked to reconfigure the college classroom as an environment that enables all students to testify, thus creating empowered communities and ultimately inspiring the next generation of leaders. As some of the most repeated mantras of feminist pedagogy, these educational goals embody the liberating power of feminist theory and practice. The pedagogical practices employed in attaining these goals typically value experiential knowledge and encourage students to be attuned to various forms of speech and knowledge construction, which are framed through a politics of power and difference. As part of an ongoing conversation about the perils of cooperative learning, independent problem-solving, and peer leadership in higher education, this reflective essay describes one strategy, which I call the four-folder system. This instructional strategy troubles the promises of safety and implied instructor surveillance that so many feminist instructors adhere to, while simultaneously creating a multi-vocal learning environment. The techniques and rationale described may be applied to a range of courses and are not necessarily bound to introductory women’s studies surveys. I propose that given favorable conditions, embracing vulnerability and risk in the classroom better frees our students from the confines of conventional pedagogies used in higher education.

Feminism and the Education of Women

1976 ◽  
Vol 159 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Florence Howe
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
State University ◽  
History Of Higher Education ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Education Of Women ◽  
Kansas State University ◽  
Women’S History

This essay grew out of an attempt to discover, through a search in the archives of nine colleges and universities, whether curriculum could be found that was not male-centered and male-biased. While the search for curriculum that included women's history and achievements proved fruitless, the research illuminated controlling feminist assumptions behind three phases of women's education: the seminary movement that established secondary education for women; the movement that established elite women's colleges; and the current women's studies movement. The author also reviews some aspects of coeducation — at Oberlin and at Kansas State University — that reflect the first phase. In its first phase, feminists interested in the education of women claimed only that women needed higher education in order to teach young children, either as paid teachers (until they married) or as mothers. The curriculum offered to women was, therefore, different from (and less demanding than) that being offered to men in colleges at the time. Indeed, seminaries could not claim to be colleges for women. In its second phase, feminists interested in the education of women insisted that women could and should study what men did: the curriculum was the “men's curriculum.” Today, we have both tendencies present, along with a third, the seven-year old women's studies movement that for the first time in the history of higher education for women has challenged male hegemony over the curriculum and over knowledge itself. The movement aims to transform the curriculum through the study of women's history, achievements, status, and potential.

scholarly journals Education in the context of an interdisciplinary paradigm in the transitional period

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (I) ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Тетяна ДЯК
Keyword(s):  
Educational Process ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Educational Processes ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Favorable Conditions

The article “Education in the Context of Interdisciplinary Paradigm in the Transitional Period” by Т. Dyak deals with the issues of interdisciplinary approaches in education in the transitional period. The problems of the essence and distinguishing features of education in the transitional period are defined. The role and place of interdisciplinary bonds as well the requirements for the educational process to meet the needs of the person, society and state are substantiated. The transitional period is revealed to be characterized by the emergence of a set of pedagogical practices caused by the pluralism of cultures, and, consequently, different requirements to education. The formulation of the educational goals and content should take place in a synergistic atmosphere. Intensification of education and the formation of personal qualities appear to be a universal human need nowadays. The problem of creativity as a manifestation of spirituality is emphasized to become the main criterion for the effectiveness of educational processes. Thus, the creation of the necessary, most favorable conditions for self-realization and self-development of a particular person by means of intellectual, emotional, moral, cultural, informational and other vectors of personality formation are found to be the most important tasks.  

Participatory Evaluation: Towards a Transformation of Assessment for Women’s Studies Programs and Projects

1988 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Poliner Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Participatory Evaluation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
New Model ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Alternative Approach

This paper addresses some of the concerns inherent in evaluating women’s studies programs and projects. It focuses on the following four areas: a) discussion of objections raised by feminists about traditional forms of assessment; b) consideration of criticisms of traditional evaluations expressed by nontraditional evaluators; c) description of the strengths and weaknesses of illuminative evaluation as an alternative approach to assessing women’s studies programs; and d) introduction of a new model of evaluation which is herein termed “participatory evaluation.” Participatory evaluation is a process allowing for the use of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It recognizes the importance of the evaluator’s role as knowledgeable insider rather than neutral outsider and facilitates development of trust between assessor and those being assessed. Evaluations based on trust permit a highly interactive form of assessment. Participatory evaluation is not only compatible with feminist theory and practice, but it is also appropriate for the assessment of women’s studies programs and projects.

Introducing Women's Studies: Feminist Theory and Practice

1994 ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Maggie Humm ◽  
Diane Richardson ◽  
Victoria Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Women’S Studies

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilde Lindemann
Keyword(s):  
Women's Studies ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Globalized Economy

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics is a hospitable approach to the study of feminist moral theory and practice. Designed to be small enough to be used as a supplement to other books, it also provides the theoretical depth necessary for stand-alone use in courses in feminist ethics, feminist philosophy, women’s studies, or other courses where feminism is studied. The Overviews section surveys feminist ethical theory and the Close-ups section looks at three topics—bioethics, violence, and the globalized economy—that help students to put the theories presented in the Overviews section to good use.

scholarly journals ‘This is education as the practice of freedom': Twenty Years of Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-127
Author(s):  
Eleri Watson ◽  
Charlotte De Val ◽  
Charlotte De Val ◽  
Eleri Anona Watson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
The University

On 23 May 2015 students on the Women’s Studies Masters (M.St course) at the University of Oxford organised a conference to commemorate twenty years of Women’s Studies at Oxford, entitled: ‘Teaching to Transgress’: Twenty Years of Women’s Studies at Oxford. The conference consisted of a mixture of papers from leading academics in the field of Women’s Studies, as well as from postgraduate students currently enrolled on the M.St programme at Oxford, with the intention of giving young early career women the opportunity to present their research to a broad interdisciplinary audience.Since its foundation in 1995, the Women’s Studies course has strived to enact what the American feminist and activist bell hooks terms ‘education as the practice of freedom’.[1] Reflecting upon the discussions emerging from the conference, the conference organisers Charlotte De Val and Eleri Anona Watson ask: ‘what are the new and repeated challenges we face in fulfilling this practice of freedom?’ They also consider the changing scope of Women’s Studies as an academic field alongside present debates regarding its future in the UK and further afield. Examining debates of ‘possibility’ and ‘impossibility’ within Women’s Studies—that is to say, materialist versus post-structuralist critiques—in conjunction with questions of accessibility and ‘intellectual gatekeeping’, this article proposes that the future of Women's Studies is not the ‘apocalyptic’ vision that its critics would often have us believe. Indeed, one of the themes emerging from the conference was that as long as the field practices radical self-questioning and self-critique, Women’s Studies will maintain its academically and socially transformative potential.[1] bell hooks’s writings cover gender, race, teaching, education and media, emphasising the connections with systems of oppression. hooks is the author of pioneering works such as Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (1981), Feminist Theory: From Margin to Centre (1984) and Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice (2013), and remains a leading public intellectual in feminist and educational studies.

scholarly journals The Role of Higher Education in the Empowerment of Arab Women

1970 ◽  
pp. 76-83
Author(s):  
Myriam Sfeir
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Round Table ◽  
Round Table Discussion ◽  
Arab Women ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Table Discussion ◽  
The Subject

The role of higher education in the empowerment of Arab women was the subject of a round table discussion held at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World in January 2006. The participants Lara A, Evette G., Yasmine D., Rania G., Dahlia K.S., Maysa H., Zeina M., Josiane M., Myriam S., Marie Jose T. and Rana W. represented several of the major universities in Lebanon. The moderators were Dr. Dima Dabbous- Sensenig and Dr. Jennifer Skulte-Ouaiss. Due to space constraints, the following are excerpts from the twohour discussion.

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