Feminist Approaches Articles

Feminist Approaches

Feminist educators from different feminist strands approached education in different ways and followed different strategies thus created various feminist pedagogies. Some feminist pedagogies have strong connections to critical pedagogy while others do not bear much resemblance (Tissdell, 1998). “While critical educational theorists have been concerned with the production and reproduction of class through schooling under capitalism, feminist theorists have been concerned with the production and reproduction of gender under patriarchy” (Weiler,1988: 3). As Weiler points out gender is the central tool of analysis and social transformation is the ultimate goal in all feminist strands. Later some feminists felt the need to address other kinds of oppression and expanded the scope of their approach:  “feminist theories of education examine oppression in educational institutions in terms of gender, clearly linked to other oppressions of class, race, sexuality and more” (Jackson, 1997: 466).

One contemporary discussion among feminists has been the utilization of theories founded by males who did not take gender into consideration. Although there seems to be agreement that such theories, for example the critical theories mentioned in the previous part, cannot be utilized in analysis without careful consideration, some feminists, especially postmodern feminists, argue that the phallocentrism inherent in those theories cannot be weeded out. On the other hand, some feminists followed male theorists and formed their theories through criticizing them. In their feminisms they are ‘engaged’ to those theories.  Among these there is one feminist whose contribution to the field cannot be ignored; bell hooks. This black feminist, influenced by the liberatory pedagogy of Freire, enriched feminist pedagogy by specifying the experience of education as a black women and tried to create a liberatory education experience by transgressing the borders (bell, 1994).  Here only four basic strands of feminism are elaborated. However, it is also possible to include the approaches of other groups such as black, psychoanalyst or lesbian feminists.