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Mainstreaming (in)equity: preservice teacher defensiveness toward feminism

University of British Columbia

While feminist theorists work to provide better ways of understanding the complexities of women's lives, feminist pedagogues tackle the growing difficulties of teaching feminism. Through analyzing various forms of defensiveness, we may determine how progressive pedagogies could better address the complexities of the classroom. By studying what happens when a feminist teaches a coeducational pre-service teacher core course that treats gender as an add-on, I illuminate various forms of defensiveness (e.g., masculine, feminine, social class, heterosexual). In doing so, I not only re-present pre-service teachers' engagement and disengagement in feminist analyses of education, but also contribute to feminist pedagogy debates. By examining consecutive interviews and classroom observations, I consider ways in which a feminist perspective informs the teaching of "gender equity" in a mainstream course and how pre-service teachers react to feminist analyses. In addition, I analyze how teaching gender equity as an add-on critiques "malestream: education, particularly when taught by a feminist. These analyses illuminate some of the institutional tensions involved in addressing anti-oppression issues and some of the difficulties facing feminist and pro-feminist instructors in university classrooms, particularly in a teacher education core course. After analyzing attempts made by a particular university to publicly mediate feminist struggles within a core teacher education course, I consider some institutional and pedagogical implications to improve classroom atmosphere.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-03-13

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6022

Education

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace