Many feminist philosophers have formulated arguments on how the construction and use of reason and rationality, especially in the western philosophical tradition, has silenced, in particular, women's voices. Some writers, such as Luce Irigaray (1985), have suggested that women develop their own discourse and ignore philosophical tradition, whereas others, for example Genevieve Lloyd (1984), contend that this tradition must be confronted. Recently, these concerns have been voiced by feminist philosophers who have been addressing the connections between feminism and the (...) philosophy for children. Terri Field (1995) expresses her concern that traditional philosophy with its established dichotomies (e.g., mind/body, reason/emotion, masculinity/femininity, subjectivity/objectivity) devalues and excludes the somatic, affective and imaginative from philosophical investigation and constructs practical barriers for women to partake in such activity. She uses a feminist critique of reason to assess philosophy for children and its goals of reasonableness. San MacColl (1994, p.5) asks ‘would you wish on women or small girls a practice of philosophy which you yourself have come to see as deeply imbued with disguised, gendered ideals and associations?’ MacColl’s question expresses well the concerns of feminists interested in the philosophical education of children. This paper looks at some of the criticisms by feminist philosophers of traditional western epistemology and how this may impact on philosophy for children. (shrink)

In this article, we interpret sex education from the perspective of feminist care ethics, emphasizing the concept of caring democracy, advanced by Joan Tronto one of the most influential feminist political theorists. According to Tronto, these theories show that a deficit of care and a lack of democracy are mutually conducive. We argue that, as in other areas of life, a lack of care in sexuality and sex education leads to social inequalities that eventually translate into an unequal (...) approach to freedom, equality, and justice, and to a deficit of democracy in the lives of some people. At the same time, we believe that, as a moral theory, care ethics, with its emphasis on the needs of men and women, can be adequately applied to the design of research projects, as well as to sexuality policies and practices. This may contribute to overcoming the stalemate in the debate on sex education and other topics in Slovakia. (shrink)

Recognising the relevance of Iris Marion Young's work to education, this article poses the question: given Iris Young's commitment to both social justice and to recognition of the political and ethical significance of difference, to what extent does her position allow for transnational interventions in education to foster democracy? First, it explores some of Iris Young's arguments on the relationship between democracy and social justice, with particular reference to their implications for education. Second, I argue that if (...) her ideas are extended to the issue of global justice, the strategies which she offers should be extended, at least when it comes to educational intervention, to allow for a wider range of actions in support of global justice through education for democracy than Iris Young's work so far seems to allow. The wider range of strategies which I propose call on western feminists and their governments to do more to promote democracy and social justice globally. This can be done in ways that are consistent with Iris Young's stipulation that transnational interference is permissible if undertaken against dominative harm. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Not Philosophy‐as‐Usual An Overview of Feminisms in Relation to Philosophy (of Education) Two Personal Narratives of Identity and Philosophy of Education A Joint Preoccupation with Social Justice and Politics in Education Women in Public (and Noticing Them When They are There) An Indeterminate Ending.

In 2021, bell hooks, an African-American anti-colonial education and feminist educator, passed on. hooks’ passing coincided with the 40th publication anniversary of her book, Ain’t I a woman: Black Women and Feminism. Her passing, and her book’s 40th anniversary, present opportunities for reflecting on her ideas about education as an instrument of freedom in a world where racists and sexists historically used education as an instrument of oppression. It is important to examine hooks’ work in South (...) Africa considering that the year 2024 marks 30 years since the publication of her work, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s attainment of democracy in 1994. Reflecting on hooks’ works on anti-colonial and Eurocentric education is of great importance considering that since 1994, South Africa has struggled with how to abolish the legacy of colonial and apartheid-driven education. Here, I examine hooks’ feminist pedagogy and teaching methods in the context of ancient Egyptian philosophy of education, reflecting on how hooks’ thinking resonated with her ancient African ancestors’ thoughts in confronting patriarchy. Simultaneously, I illustrate the relevance of ancient Egypt’s and hooks’ ideas on liberatory teaching methods in the continuing calls for a decolonised, anti-racist, anti-sexist and Afrocentric education in South Africa. Here, racist and sexist education is seen as a “disabler”, and decolonising teaching practices are seen as “enablers”. (shrink)

Historically, leadership positions, as well as research on leadership and effective leadership, was primarily reserved for men or masculine characteristics With most societies traditionally following a patriarchal hierarchy, few people questioned inequalities in leadership attainment, largely because of supernatural and/or natural explanations of men’s natural ability and desire to lead. This book runs counter to that culture and examines the experiences and leadership enactments of ten historically famous women leaders in hopes of gaining insight into their uniquely female leadership styles.

Currently a number of feminists in philosophy and religious studies as well as other academic disciplines have argued that policies, practices and doctrines assumed to be sexneutral are in fact male-biased. Thus, Rosemary Reuther, reflecting on the development of theology in the Judeo-Christian tradition suggests that the long-term exclusion of women from leadership and theological education has rendered the “official theological culture” repressive to women and dismissive of women’s experience: “To begin to take women seriously,” she notes, “will involve (...) a profound and radical transformation of our religions.”3 Such a project exists in tension with what is generally regarded as Christian orthodoxy and so, as Reuther suggests, challenges the assumptions and categories of traditional theology. (shrink)

The purpose of this research report is twofold: First, we analyze a complex of attitudes about rape myths, adversarial sexual beliefs, and gender-role conservatism; and second, we evaluate the impact of rape-education intervention strategies on American college students' attitudes. Using the Solomon four-group design, we randomly assigned 14 classes of Sociology 101 students to three different treatment conditions: a live rape-education workshop, a video of the workshop, and a control group. We found significant gender differences in students' attitudes (...) on all the scales, with women being more knowledgeable about rape, less likely to blame the victim, and less accepting of adversarial sexual beliefs and gender-role conservatism. Most important, we found that within the limits of the study, rape-education intervention works in changing some attitudes about rape for both men and women students. We examine the impact of the different educational strategies and explore curricular implications, including the need to teach about rape within a feminist context. (shrink)

A historically feminized profession, education in North America remains remarkably unaffected by feminism, with the notable exception of pedagogy and its impact on curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to describe characteristics of feminism that render it particularly useful and appropriate for developing potentialities in education and music education. As a set of flexible methodological tools informed by Gilles Deleuze's notions of philosophy and art, I argue feminism may contribute to education's becoming (...) more efficacious, reflexive, and reflective of the values of its participants. Its impetus involves ‘feminist imperative(s)’ to help in the sense articulated by Elizabeth Grosz: to provoke thought, challenge, and problematize. (shrink)

Feminist studies of female genital cutting (FGC) provide ample evidence that many women exercise effective agency with respect to this practice, both as accommodators and as resisters. The influence of culture on autonomy is ambiguous: women who resist cultural mandates for FGC do not necessarily enjoy greater autonomy than do those women who accommodate the practice, yet it is clear that some social contexts are more conducive to autonomy than others. In this paper, I explore the implications for autonomy theory (...) of these understandings of the relation between culture, FGC, and women’s agency. I review the range of worldwide FGC practices – including “corrective” surgery for “ambiguous genitalia” in Western cultures as well as the various initiation rites observed in some African and Asian cultures – and the diverse cultural rationales for different forms of FGC. I argue that neither latitudinarian, value‐neutral accounts of autonomy nor restrictive, value‐saturated accounts adequately explain women’s agentic position with respect to FGC. I then analyze a number of educational programs that have enhanced women's autonomy, especially by strengthening their introspection, empathy, and imagination. Such programs, which engage women's autonomy skills without exposing them to autonomy‐disabling cultural alienation, promote autonomy‐within‐culture. This understanding of autonomy as socially situated, however, entails neither endorsement of FGC nor resignation to its persistence. (shrink)

Feminist studies of female genital cutting (FGC) provide ample evidence that many women exercise effective agency with respect to this practice, both as accommodators and as resisters. The influence of culture on autonomy is ambiguous: women who resist cultural mandates for FGC do not necessarily enjoy greater autonomy than do those women who accommodate the practice, yet it is clear that some social contexts are more conducive to autonomy than others. In this paper, I explore the implications for autonomy theory (...) of these understandings of the relation between culture, FGC, and women’s agency. I review the range of worldwide FGC practices – including “corrective” surgery for “ambiguous genitalia” in Western cultures as well as the various initiation rites observed in some African and Asian cultures – and the diverse cultural rationales for different forms of FGC. I argue that neither latitudinarian, value‐neutral accounts of autonomy nor restrictive, value‐saturated accounts adequately explain women’s agentic position with respect to FGC. I then analyze a number of educational programs that have enhanced women's autonomy, especially by strengthening their introspection, empathy, and imagination. Such programs, which engage women's autonomy skills without exposing them to autonomy‐disabling cultural alienation, promote autonomy‐within‐culture. This understanding of autonomy as socially situated, however, entails neither endorsement of FGC nor resignation to its persistence. (shrink)

_Feminism and ‘The Schooling Scandal’_ brings together feminist contributions from two generations of educational researchers, evaluating and celebrating the field of gender and education. The focus throughout is on the years of compulsory schooling, examining key concepts in gender and education identified and developed by international thinkers in educational feminism. Topics covered include: social class, ethnicity and sexuality in relation to experiences in school; theories and methodologies for understanding gender; pedagogy and practice in education; and the (...) direction of educational policy and the ‘problem of boys’. Providing a comprehensive overview of contemporary research and theory emerging from ‘second wave’ feminism and assessing their impact on pupils and teachers in today’s schools and classrooms, this book forms essential reading for anyone studying gender and education. (shrink)

_Democracy and Education Reconsidered_ highlights the continued relevance of John Dewey’s _Democracy and Education_ while also examining the need to reconstruct and re-contextualize Dewey’s educational philosophy for our time. The authors propose ways of revising Dewey’s thought in light of the challenges facing contemporary education and society, and address other themes not touched upon heavily in Dewey’s work, such as racism, feminism, post-industrial capitalism, and liquid modernity. As a final component, the authors integrate Dewey’s philosophy with more (...) recent trends in scholarship, including pragmatism, post-structuralism, and the works of other key philosophers and scholars. (shrink)

_Democracy and Education Reconsidered_ highlights the continued relevance of John Dewey’s _Democracy and Education_ while also examining the need to reconstruct and re-contextualize Dewey’s educational philosophy for our time. The authors propose ways of revising Dewey’s thought in light of the challenges facing contemporary education and society, and address other themes not touched upon heavily in Dewey’s work, such as racism, feminism, post-industrial capitalism, and liquid modernity. As a final component, the authors integrate Dewey’s philosophy with more (...) recent trends in scholarship, including pragmatism, post-structuralism, and the works of other key philosophers and scholars. (shrink)

Feminists often look to postmodern philosophy for a framework within which to treat difference. We might more productively look to a hermeneutic philosophy that emphasizes the interpretive dimensions of difference and allows us to acknowledge the partiality of our understanding. Hence, we might also recognize the importance of a hermeneutic conversation unconstrained by relations of power or ideology in which all nonexclusionary interpretive voices can be educated by one another.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education of June 30, 1993, reported, “Two decades after it began redefining debates” in many other disciplines, “feminist thinking seems suddenly to have arrived in economics.” Many economists, of course, did not happen to be in the station when this train arrived, belated as it might be. Many who might have heard rumor of its coming have not yet learned just what arguments are involved or what it promises for the refinement of (...) the profession. The purpose of this essay is to provide a low-cost way of gaining some familiarity. (shrink)

A contemporary appraisal of the breadth, significance, and legacy of the work of Charlene Haddock Seigfried, this book brings together writings focused on pragmatist feminism/feminist pragmatism, contemporary pragmatism, William James and the reconstruction of philosophy, education and American philosophy in the 21st century. Charlene Haddock Seigfried is a looming figure in American thought and feminist theory who coined the phrase 'pragmatist feminist' which has become an increasingly important concept in contemporary philosophy. Haddock Siegfried argues that pragmatism and its (...) rich history is a natural ally for feminism and that the creative combination of these two traditions can pave the way for a genuinely emancipatory feminist practice. Pragmatist Feminism and the Work of Charlene Haddock Seigfried explores and pushes this theory and brings it into conversation with some of the most vibrant strands of current philosophy. (shrink)

Michel Foucault showed by his genealogical method that history is random. It comprises sites of disarray and dispersal. In those sites, Simone de Beauvoir wrote philosophy through lived experience of woman as Other in relation to man as the Absolute. Here lies a fecund site for revisionist analysis of female cultural production and its relevance to a philosophy of education. The paper works with a feminist approach to the politics of knowledge, examining textual and political strategies in the recording (...) of history and the ‘othering’ of women through dominant cultural discourses. Infusing this discussion is a feminist politics of interrogation on cultural change for women. The paper investigates contributions of women to fields of art, politics, education and philosophy, and to the ways their contributions have been considered, received, positioned. Different approaches to feminism become apparent in the different conditions of knowledge under discussion. This leads to a final consideration of femi... (shrink)

rgen Habermas's response to struggles for recognition on the part of women and minority groups. Although this response expands the focus of liberal political theory from the achievement and constitutional protection of individual rights to the public deliberations and discussions of democratic citizens, the article argues that Habermas pays insufficient attention to the interpretive aspects of democratic deliberation. For Habermas the role of interpretation in feminist struggles for recognition is restricted to the clarification and self-clarification of needs. Where different groups (...) of women understand their needs differently, these differences must be procedurally resolved. In contrast, the article argues that conflicting interpretations are the source of reciprocal processes of education necessary to legitimate policy conclusions. Moreover, it argues that social identities are in general products of interpretation and that conceiving of them in this way allows for fluidity and flexibility in who we take ourselves to be. Key Words: deliberation • democratic discourse • feminism • Habermas • interpretation • Rhode. (shrink)

Sexual politics at the turn of the last century caused public outcry, demonstrations and petitions, and serious debate among concerned men and women. Now available again in paperback, Lucy Bland's richly textured book vividly details the private and public debates, campaigns, and struggles among feminists to resolve the key areas of sexual politics, encompassing marriage, prostitution, birth control, and sex education.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:34 Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. James Bliss Defense, Redemption, Care: Black Feminist and Queer Studies Literary theory continues to be received by some as if it were an alien or antagonistic presence from whose leaden and reductive grasp it is imperative to keep literature protected. It is rare, however, that it is the literary, as such, that is being protected, rather than (...) a certain comfortable accommodation with it—not irreducible strangeness and surprise, but the security of knowing that one’s expectations will be fulfilled and one’s competence as a reader rewarded. The pleasures of accommodation and immediate assimilation are the first that theory asks us to forego—which may do as much to make it seem forbidding and “inhumane” as anything it actually proposes. —Elizabeth W. Bruss1 I. Theory Not for the first time, we find ourselves building new genres. Pursuing new writings. Not for the first time, the theoretical and the literary envelope, eclipse, and rearticulate one another. What’s more, the theoretical has been a mode of artistic practice for so long that every page is a palimpsest, a sedimentation of sedimentations of conceptual frames— swirled, spiraling genealogies. Fluent in invented tongues, in the idioms 1. Elizabeth W. Bruss, Beautiful Theories: The Spectacle of Discourse in Contemporary Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 483. 35 James Bliss Books Discussed in This Essay Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality. By Jennifer C. Nash. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life. By Stephen Best. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance. By Amber Jamilla Musser. New York: NYU Press, 2018. Queer Times, Black Futures. By Kara Keeling. New York: NYU Press, 2019. of invention, in the fluid looseness of disintegrated discourses, our works turn singular. The monograph as signature. The page promises to freeze the text, the object, the artwork, the lifeworld, the performance, and in that stillness to teach us its movements. New moves, secret passageways, lines of escape and gaps in the walls of institutions that die, dissolve, and ossify around and inside us. And here we are. The permanent apocalypse that racial capitalism has been for most life has reached the quadrangles of the college campus. What are we even doing anymore? In the great and dreadful remaking of higher education, as students face permanent indebtedness as the cost of entry into a world without work, what is the ethical impetus for our researches and the systems within which we publish? What are the ethics of critical cultural studies in a debt mine? By what arithmetic do we benefit the students we teach to “steal from the university ” when the university is so much more adroit at stealing from them (and us)? At the same time that the contours of our professional lives are, apparently, unraveling, we find ourselves in (another) new renaissance in Black studies and Black study. We find ourselves within (another) new moment of textual production around the trio of race/gender/sexuality— that is, around Blackness or around Black feminism. 36 James Bliss Or, Black invention—where the Black female, femme, feminine, and maternal operate as synecdochic figures for a species of poiēsis.2 In the 1980s, Jacques Derrida wryly called California the “state of theory” as a function of its tectonic instability.3 In the 2010s, Blackness became the state of theory as a function of its coincidence of death and life, ending and beginning, absence and excess, apocalypse and invention. Blackness, in this instance, is as material as it is metaphor, a projection of meaning across both the great ephemeral skin and the body as flesh. This piece emerges from a sense of the necessity and the hazards of an intellectual history of a moment during which, to take a suggestive phrase from Jared Sexton, “Blackness is theory itself, anti-blackness the resistance to theory.”4 But already language presents an issue. What is the relationship between Sexton’s “theory” and the “theory” found in the epigraph from Elizabeth Bruss? Or, between Sexton’s “theory” and Lewis R. Gordon’s “theory,” as Sexton borrows from Gordon’s “Theory in... (shrink)

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a pioneering feminist writer, educationist and activist in colonial Bengal, who not only sought to emancipate women from the deeply entrenched values of Indian social and cultural patriarchy through her darkly satirical and provocative writings, but also actively pursued her idea of empowering women through education by setting up a school for Muslim girls. This article will investigate Rokeya’s feminist ideology and her educational programmes undertaken for the betterment of Indian women, especially Bengali Muslim women. (...) I intend to argue that although born into an orthodox family and brought up in strict purdah without any formal education, Rokeya had that rare foresight and courage to challenge the social status quo of her time and ridicule many of the outmoded gender practices in her writings, and even turn gender relations upside down by creating a Ladyland in her utopian narrative Sultana’s Dream, in which men are confined to indoors while women run the state. Moreover, she was practical enough to reify her vision by taking steps to eradicate women’s ignorance and invigorate their sense of self, by setting up a school in Calcutta and by running programmes to educate slum women through the association for Muslim women, Anjuman-i-Khwateen-i-Islam, which she founded in 1916—all at a time when Indian Muslim women were expected to live in confinement in the zenana and any attempt to educate them was seen as blasphemous. (shrink)

Written specifically for education studies students, this accessible text offers a clear introduction to philosophy of education. It skilfully guides readers through this challenging and sometimes complex area bringing key philosophical ideas and questions to life in the context and practice of education. Considering the implications of educational trends and movements through a variety of philosophical lenses such as Marxism, feminism, ethics and democracy, the book explores enduring themes in philosophy of education. Features include: individual (...) tasks and group activities to promote discussion case studies notes boxes to highlight further reading; chapter overviews and summaries Drawing on readers' own experiences of education, the book reveals the connections between philosophical ideas and educational policy and practice. Part of the Foundations in Education Studies series, this timely textbook is essential reading for students coming to the study of philosophy of education for the first time. (shrink)

This paper argues that education policy sociology, as presently constituted, is limited in its theoretical, disciplinary and strategic concerns. Specifically, it urges those working in the field to establish a more critical social scientific approach to their work through increased engagement with feminist and antiracist literature.

This article presents the results of an analysis of the large-scale processed texts of Arabic newspapers in the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology Arabic Corpus Project. I adopted methods modified from the Biber Connor Upton Approach to retrieve the expanded concordances of the lexical units almarᵓa and alnisāᵓ from the corpus. The extracted text reveals the discursive patterns regarding a number of topics which are discussed in Arabic newspapers, namely, socio-culture and eco-politics. The results of the study show (...) how and why topics related to Arab women are discursively constructed, revealing negative patterns with regard to the topics discrimination, the veil, sports, male guardianship, driving, pro-divorce settlements and municipal elections, and positive patterns concerning the topics marital status, violence, education, travel, sexual harassment, the removal of male guardianship, employment, ministerial election and political participation. The specific case of the topic veil is subsequently analysed in more detail and the results reveal that the topic is associated with negative patterns within a wider socio-cultural discourse. (shrink)

In this new and expanded edition of their controversial 1994 book, the authors update their analysis of what's gone wrong with Women's Studies programs. Their three new chapters provide a devastating and detailed examination of the routine practices found in feminst teaching and research.

Abstractabstract:This study examines the origin and religious roots of taegyo, Korean traditional prenatal education, and raises concerns about potential negative impacts of contemporary taegyo practice from feminist and disability perspectives. Taegyo has been accepted without much criticism due to its deep integration into prenatal care culture, and most existing literature focuses on taegyo's positive impacts on fetal health and development from scientific or nursing perspectives. This article analyzes a 19th-century taegyo manual, Taegyo Singi, and Seon and Won Buddhist literatures (...) on taegyo in order to understand the religio-cultural concepts and contexts of taegyo. The article then discusses the potential downsides of taegyo practice today, considering its patriarchal, mother-blaming, ablest roots in Korean history and culture. The author raises concerns about social oppression, the control of women's bodily autonomy, and the disproportionate responsibility burden that taegyo places on Korean women. The article concludes with suggestions for future research and for well-balanced taegyo practice. (shrink)

This article focuses on the articulations of migration and gender, from the vantage point of women whose feminist experiences have been both enriched and challenged by migration and vice versa. It presents the results of a qualitative research study of five Latin American women who migrated to Barcelona and felt close to feminisms. The author draws on feminist and postcolonial approaches to migration studies that highlight the active role women play in migratory processes as well as how intersectional variables of (...) ethnic origin, socioeconomic class, education and family contexts are articulated, configuring different power relations and resources in specific sociohistorical contexts. The results challenge widespread stereotypes about migrant women by revealing a rich diversity of profiles, motivations and migratory pathways, as well as how informants’ experiences of social activism across national borders have transformed their subject formation processes and re-positioned them as active subjects of political action. (shrink)

This article discusses the hypothesis of a recovery of the phenomenological and literary paradigms of antiquity to cross the complexity of the existential, educational and relational experience in the digital contemporary world, focusing on the problems of the construction of identity and digital citizenship in social coexistence intended as a place of education.

Feminist educators and theorists are stretching the boundaries of what it means to do religion and science. They are also expanding the theoretical and practical frameworks through which we might present curricula in thosefields. In this paper, I reflect on the implications of feminist pedagogies for the interdisciplinary field of religion and science. I begin with a brief discussion of feminist approaches to education and the nature of the feminist classroom as a setting for action. Next, I present some (...) theoretical and practical issues to consider when developing a feminist praxis and an antisexist curriculum. This leads into a discussion of the role of language and critical reflection in the religion and science classroom, the risks associated with reflective discourse, and considerations in the use of ‘feminist’ teaching tools such as small group work, journals, and portfolio assessment. Iconclude with a reflection on how feminist pedagogy promotes an epistemology that speaks to the hearts and minds of participants in the dialogue of religion and science. (shrink)

_In the mainstream culture to identify oneself as a "feminist" has been a fashion. Feminism covers all issues degrading and depriving women of their due in society vis-à-vis male members and it has started a crusade against atrocities on women across the globe. It is therefore regarded as synonymous with a movement and revolution to defend and promote issues involving women. However, the concerns that feminism raises do seem alien to tribal inhabitants in the Koraput district of Orissa, (...) because, unknowingly, they are its champions. Its principles are ingrained in their very culture. They practice and follow feminism as a matter of habit that has come to them down the ages. They do not follow it out of fear, compassion, enlightenment, education or compulsion; it is a necessity that comes quite naturally to them. It has been spontaneous and indigenous._. (shrink)

In this article Paul Warmington examines the dystopian analyses pervading recent work by David Blacker, John Marsh, and Pauline Lipman. Their unsettling depictions of education under late capitalism bear witness to irreversible economic and environmental malaise, the colonization of education by neoliberalism, and the unsustainability of faith in education as the driver of economic security and social mobility. In reality, our education systems are now barely able to mask the fact that increasing numbers of people are (...) being fitted for dispensability, that is, elimination from the socio-educational mainstream. These three authors return neo-Marxist structural theory to us in chastened form. They acknowledge the lessons of cultural studies, feminism, and critical theories of race, but they are unafraid to suggest that correspondence, determinism, and pessimism may again need to enter our theoretical worldviews. However, their pessimism has political value. Rather than defeating us, it may become the imperative for political and educational change. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Troy Richardson’s Terence McLaughlin’s Lecture. In it, I discuss how Richardson provides a unique reading of relationality, drawing together technology studies, Indigenous Education and feminist philosophy of education. Seeking to walk with key ideas he develops, this response also points to a possible limitation in seeing Noddings ethic of care as part of a feminist relational ontology that can help inform new ways of understanding ‘machine learning’. In particular, I introduce the notion (...) of worlding as a way of complementing Richardson’s reading of relationality – a notion that has profound implications for pedagogical practice. (shrink)

This edited collection challenges the urban-centric nature of much feminist work on gender and education. The context for the book is the radical reconfiguration of rural areas that has occurred in recent decades as a result of globalisation. From a range of diverse national contexts, including Kenya and South Africa, Australia and Canada, and the United States and Pakistan, authors explore the intersections between masculinity, femininity, and rurality in education. In recognition of the heterogeneity of categories such as (...) ‘rural girl’ and ‘rural boy’ they attend to how educational exclusions can be magnified by differences in relation to social locations such as class, race, or sexuality. Similar critical insights are brought to bear as authors examine what it means to be a male or female teacher in rural environments. Contributors draw on data ranging from contemporary feature films to historical materials, along with detailed ethnographic work and participatory approaches, to produce a compelling narrative of the need to understand education as experienced by those who are not part of the urban majority. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Gender and Education. _. (shrink)

Explores a provocative alternative vision of education based on an analysis of the feminist educational thought of Jane Roland Martin. Emergent thinking on gender, knowledge, and caring is highlighted, with particular attention to gender-sensitive education and cultural wealth and the implications they hold for the school curriculum.

This article provides an account of some of the education provisions by Irish women religious, in the Anglophone world, in the nineteenth century. Although many orders sent Sisters around the globe, to both establish and run schools for English-speaking children, the main focus of this article is on two Irish orders, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Sisters of Mercy. While the work of other female congregations is noted, the focus on these two (...) orders reflects the fact that they spread quickly around the globe, attracting many Irish vocations and eventually making a substantial contribution to education. The Sisters of Mercy were also known for their work in health care; however, the focus of this article is on education. The article commences with a review of the research in the field and the approaches taken by historians. The article also notes some lacunae in research and points to areas that merit more attention. The article then examines the experience of Irish nuns overseas and the contribution of the Mercy and Presentation nuns. (shrink)

Feminist ethics supports the contemporary educational trend toward increased multiculturalism and a diminished emphasis on the Western canon. First, I outline a feminist ethical justification for this development. Second, I argue that Western canon studies should not be altogether abandoned in a multicultural curriculum. Third, I suggest that multicultural education should help combat oppression in addition to simply promoting awareness of diversity. Fourth, I caution against an arrogant moralism in the teaching of multiculturalism.