Educating Like the Spring Rain: Feminist Practices of Women Teachers in Chinese Schools

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Feminist Practices/Emotional Labor: Examining Intersectional Educator Identity

Abstract

This study examines how feminist-minded teachers in China negotiate their professional practice within systemic educational constraints. Using narrative inquiry, it explores four key themes embedded in their contextualized feminist pedagogy: strategic adaptation (critically transforming resources within standardized curricula), quiet influence (employing care, modeling, and dialogue), resilient community (building peer alliances), and identity negotiation (grappling with isolation and label ambivalence). The research highlights their implicit efforts to promote gender equity and critical consciousness in an exam-driven environment, often through "de-labeled" practice. It illustrates the transformative potential of "quiet feminism" in navigating institutional and societal resistance,significantly extending scholarship on feminist pedagogy to non - Western, primary and secondary school stage contexts.

Author

• Xin Yi Zhang, East China Normal University