scholarly journals Feminism as Epistemic Disobedience and Transformative Knowledge: Exploration of an Alternative Educational Centre

Šolsko polje ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol XXXI (5-6) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Biljana Kašić

Living under the threat of demonising feminism along with its de-politicisation and commodification in an age of “postfeminist sensibility” (Gill, 2007), and the reduction of women’s/gender studies programmes worldwide is more than a reason to revisit the feminist politics of knowledge here and now. Since the neoliberal trend is impregnated “with old-fashioned academic design that counts on (neo)conservativism” (Kašić, 2016), retrograde claims and (neo)traditional morality, one challenge is how to respond to the sexist, androcentric, anti-gender and racist assumptions that are deepening inequality and fostering social exclusion and discrimination as well as to disrupting the mainstream knowledge of scientificity (Pereira, 2017). By using the Centre for Women’s Studies in Zagreb as an example, the paper argues that an alternative form of education outside mainstream academic institutions, despite various obstacles and inner problems, can ensure a freeing up from hegemonic and misogynist knowledge more than a university education by creating a powerful space toward feminism as an epistemic disobedience and activist theory, and by providing the political subjectivisation of both teachers and students. In this regard, three topics are of analytical interest here: feminism as subversive knowledge; critical pedagogy from the perspective of “epistemology of discomfort”; and the potential held by feminism as an engaged (activist) theory. The questions and themes proposed are not new but continue on previous epistemic dilemmas and disputes both around feminism and progressive ideas around education, and coming to terms with feminist urgency and ethical responsibility (Spivak, 2012).

Author(s):  
Ralph Henham

This chapter argues that the relationship between penal policy and the political economy provides important insights into the political and institutional reforms required to minimize harsh and discriminatory penal policies. However, the capacity of sentencing policy to engage with this social reality in a meaningful way necessitates a recasting of penal ideology. To realize this objective requires a profound understanding of sentencing’s social value and significance for citizens. The greatest challenge then lies in establishing coherent links between penal ideology and practice to encourage forms of sentencing that are sensitive to changes in social value. The chapter concludes by explaining how the present approach taken by the courts of England and Wales to the sentencing of women exacerbates social exclusion and reinforces existing divisions in social morality. It urges fundamental changes in ideology and practice so that policy reflects a socially valued rationale for the criminalization and punishment of women.


1983 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 13-13
Author(s):  
Avery Leiserson

This essay addresses the problem of teachers and students who have reached the point of trying to find a common ground for perceiving (seeing) politics. This may occur almost any time during any social science course, but it cannot be assumed to happen automatically the first day of class in government, citizenship, or public affairs. Hopefully, the signal is some variant of the question: “What do we mean by politics, or the political aspect of human affairs?” A parade of definitions — taking controversial positions on public policy issues; running for elective office; who gets what, when and how; and manipulating people—is not a mutually-satisfying answer if it produces the Queen of Hearts’ attitude in students that the word politics means what they choose it to mean and nothing more.


Author(s):  
Jane E. Klobas ◽  
Stefano Renzi

While virtual universities and remote classrooms have captured the headlines, there has been a quiet revolution in university education. Around the globe, the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure needed to support Web-enhanced learning (WEL) is well established, and the Internet and the World Wide Web (the Web) are being used by teachers and students in traditional universities in ways that complement and enhance traditional classroom-based learning (Observatory of Borderless Education, 2002). The Web is most frequently used by traditional universities to provide access to resources—as a substitute for, or complement to, notice boards, distribution of handouts, and use of the library (Collis & Van der Wende, 2002). Therefore, most of the change has been incremental rather than transformational. Adoption of WEL has yet to meet its potential—some would say the imperative (Bates, 2000; Rudestam & Schoenholtz- Read, 2002)—to change the nature of learning at university and to transform the university itself.


2021 ◽  
pp. 2455328X2110221
Author(s):  
Ronki Ram

Social exclusion of Dalits in India is often understood in terms of discriminatory social structures embedded in oppressive cultural domains of pure versus polluted. Territorial demarcation of Dalits from upper/dominant castes is yet another way of perpetuating and sustaining social exclusion while segregating them in separate neighbourhoods built on the Varna principle of graded social inequality. However, over the last few years, Dalits have gathered some strength to say no to social exclusion while re-territorializing their segregated living spaces into radical sites of social contestation. Dalit counterculture and alternative Dalit heritage are what provided the necessary material for the re-territorialization of Dalit segregated neighbourhoods. The central concern of this study is to unravel what led to transformation of separate Dalit neighbourhoods into social territoriality of contestation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-298
Author(s):  
Valentina N. EDRONOVA

Subject. In the context of digital transformation of the society, online courses, as a form of basic and additional education in universities, play a crucial role. Objectives. I consider the types and content of online courses used by universities for distance education, analyze the perception of the new forms of educational process by teachers and students, and positive and negative aspects of distance learning in 2020. Methods. The study employs statistical methods of data collection, generalization of basic statistics, analysis of obtained results and materials that are published in scientific publications and mass media, best practices for remote learning. Results. The paper provides consolidated assessment of positive and negative aspects of remote regime of the traditional form of education, the participation of universities in programs for online mass education, the demand for and directions of supplementary education in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, State support to digital transformation of universities in 2020. Conclusions. At the current stage of digital transformation of education, universities use different options to implement distance learning. Online courses, being the main form of modern university education, are developing and improving rapidly. They play an important role in the system of training specialists for the national economy and individual development.


2020 ◽  
pp. 019251212093120
Author(s):  
Paloma Caravantes

This paper analyzes the interplay of left populist and feminist politics through a case study of Podemos (‘we can’), a Spanish left populist party that reproduces a dominant gendered logic of politics despite its feminist interpretation of democratic renewal. I argue that this is the result of fundamental contradictions between the feminist and populist projects of political transformation that coexist in the party. Even if left populism offers a more productive terrain for gender equality than right populism, central tenets of populism disrupt feminist commitments and goals. Chief among these are the oversimplification of the political field based on a limited diagnosis, the exclusionary appeals to the homeland and to a homogenizing collectivity of the people, the dominant masculine and personalistic logics of charismatic leaders, the prioritization of electoral success over other forms of political transformation, and the resulting gendered political culture that marginalizes empowerment, inclusion, and participatory democratic practices.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0739456X2097168
Author(s):  
Francisco Vergara-Perucich ◽  
Camillo Boano

This article problematizes the relationship between the ethos of urban practitioners and the ideology of neoliberalism to show how neoliberalism has transformed urban design to make it an efficient mechanism for capital accumulation. The method used in the article is based on archival research and statistical analysis in addition to a comparative housing sample in Chile from the Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental (Environmental Assessment System). What emerges from such unpacking is a severe contradiction stemming from the clash between urban practitioners’ ethical responsibility in developing good cities and the neoliberalist goal of merely increasing the profitability of spaces. The article discusses the political and ideological dimensions of neoliberal urbanisms and the effects of neoliberalism in everyday urban practice of making in neoliberal urbanisms and discusses how to separate urban design practices from the profit-oriented ethos.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 266-284
Author(s):  
Laura A. Taylor ◽  
Michiko Hikida

This article explores how critical pedagogy unfolds in the everyday interactions between teachers and students. Specifically, Freirean constructs of critique and dialogue were explored in two key literacy events drawn from an ethnographically informed case study of one fourth-grade classroom. The events were first examined from an ethnographic perspective to understand how sociopolitical issue(s) were being critiqued (or avoided). These events were then analyzed again through microanalytic discourse analysis to explore how teachers and students jointly accomplished dialogue and critique through proposing and taking up of particular stances toward text(s). By juxtaposing these two analytic lenses, the researchers argue for an understanding of critical pedagogy, particularly the tenets of critique and dialogue, as interactionally co-constructed in the continually evolving, everyday talk between teachers and students. This article closes by considering the implications of this work for classroom-based literacy research that examines critical pedagogy.


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