The Role of Feminist Pedagogies in Transforming the Politics Curriculum

• In Event: Theoretical Approaches

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of adopting feminist pedagogies for an undergraduate course on feminist theory at a large modern university in the UK. Whilst feminist theory is often considered to be radical and inclusive in its content, it is argued that conventional approaches to the teaching of feminist theory at undergraduate level in UK higher education often rely upon an implicitly traditional and hierarchical curriculum design that is at odds with much feminist theory and critical feminist pedagogy. Conventional approaches to teaching feminist theory, for example, organise the curriculum according to a series of ‘schools of thought’ or political ideologies (e.g., liberal feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminism) – an approach that is reinforced by textbooks and the UK Politics and IR curriculum more broadly. Theoretical critiques of the 'schools of thought' approach are well known (e.g., Hemmings, 2005, Hutchings, 2021), but the practical pedagogical limitations of this approach for the teaching of feminist theory are under-explored.
This paper provides a critique of conventional approaches used for teaching feminist theory and explains how the module teaching team have re-designed the curriculum – with the aim of achieving a better alignment between course curriculum design and feminist pedagogies. The adoption of an alternative embodied, feminist pedagogy (e.g., hooks, 2014) shifts the focus of curriculum design away from identifying ways to organise and categorise feminist theory (in a linear teleological or hierarchical ordering, such as through ‘schools of thought’, for example), towards an exploration of what feminist theory does (in an active and engaged sense). The introduction of teaching feminist political theory via critical feminist pedagogies, it is argued, not only changes the delivery of teaching the course - moving away from a ‘sage on the stage/guide on the side’ approach, to shared, collaborative participatory learning and knowledge creation - it also requires a radical re-think of curriculum design and course content organisation. The paper discusses the changes made to course curriculum design, some early indications of potential impact on student outcomes, and critically reflects on the extent to which the critiques of conventional approaches are overcome through the revised curriculum. The wider implications of adopting feminist pedagogies are then explored. Firstly, the extent to which feminist pedagogies raise a possible challenge to the curriculum design of other politics modules and courses is discussed. Secondly, the relationship between feminist pedagogies and decolonising the curriculum is explored. It is argued that feminist pedagogies might provide a useful (practical) way of beginning the move towards internationalising/decolonising the curriculum. The final section of the paper explores the recent growth in decolonising the curriculum toolkits across UK higher education and examines disciplinary-specific discussions as to what decolonisation might or should entail for the teaching and study of Politics and International Relations within the UK (Begum & Saini, 2019 & 2020; Emejulu, 2019; Choat, 2020). It concludes by returning to feminist pedagogies and exploring the role that feminist pedagogies might/could/do play in relation to calls to decolonise the curriculum.

References:
Begum, N. and Saini, R., 2019. Decolonising the curriculum. Political Studies Review, 17(2), pp.196-201.
Choat, S., 2021. Decolonising the political theory curriculum. Politics, 41(3), pp.404-420.
Emejulu, A., 2019. Can political science decolonise? A response to Neema Begum and Rima Saini. Political Studies Review, 17(2), pp.202-206.
Hemmings, C., 2005. Telling feminist stories. Feminist theory, 6(2), pp.115-139.
hooks, b., 2014. Teaching to transgress. Routledge.
Hutchings, K., Dunstan, S., Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Phillips, A., Lu, C., Finlay, C.J. and Ramgotra, M., 2022. On canons and question marks: The work of women’s international thought.

View paper on APSA Preprints here.

Author

• Rose Gann, Nottingham Trent University