What Is Feminist Pedagogy? Useful Ideas for Teaching Chemistry
Catherine Hurt Middlecamp Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706
Banu Subramaniam Women's Studies Department, Unviersity of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
In our experience, scientists are likely to be newcomers to the scholarship that has arisen from the field of women's studies. This paper will examine one such area of scholarship, feminist pedagogy, and relate it to the teaching and learning of chemistry. More correctly, one should refer to feminist pedagogies, as this scholarship is evolving and is a topic for continual debate. Generally speaking, feminist pedagogies share a number of themes: a focus on women/gender, authority, position, empowerment, voice, and non-neutrality. Each of these themes is described and then applied to the chemistry classroom. Examples include using technology to give students a voice, using same-sex groupings, instituting a class board of directors, examining textbook questions, and asking new or different questions as you teach. Although feminist pedagogy aims to make science classrooms and laboratories more hospitable to women, it can inform our teaching practices and benefit all our students.
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Citation
Middlecamp, Catherine Hurt; Subramaniam, Banu. J. Chem. Educ.1999 76 520.
Keywords
Chemical Education Research; Women in Chemistry; Teaching/Learning Theory/Practice; pedagogy; feminism
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