From Private to Public: Designating the Classroom as a Liminal Space in the Practice of Women and Girls’ Citizenship

• In Event: Defining citizenship for diverse societies through inclusive classrooms

Abstract

Objectives:
In this paper, I explore entitlements and hindrances to gendered citizenship in public spaces and its reciprocal relationship with the classroom. I contend that the classroom is a liminal space that exists on the continuum of public and private, and is therefore the ideal location for women and girls to practice citizenship. I highlight historical and geographical definitions of citizenship and the public sphere to illuminate the history of the obstruction of women and girls in public arenas. Modern day Panchayat politics in Kerala, India, are highlighted as an example of where citizenship is being practiced by women, and obstructed by men.

I contend that preparing women and girls for the practice of citizenship in the classroom will: 1) make it easier for women and girls to occupy citizenship in more significant public spaces; and 2) desensitize men and boys by frequently exposing them to the equal and equitable practice of citizenship in the classroom. Thus, men and boys will decrease resistance to the advancement and progress of women in society, even potentially becoming allies.

This topic is relevant to schools and learning around the globe for its ability to foster cooperation and collaboration, and increase community engagement by conscientiously redefining citizenship in more meaningful, inclusive, and productive ways.

Theoretical Framework:
This research draws upon progressive pedagogies such as progressivism and critical pedagogy partly because the school was founded upon such notions, but also for their commitments to reciprocity of knowledge and authority between teacher and learner. Progressive pedagogies are also employed for their commitment to social change, analysis of citizenship, and praxis. Transnational and postcolonial feminist theories are incorporated for their emphases on social justice, inquiries into power relations, and marginalized sectors.

Methods:
Critical feminist ethnographic methodology was employed to understand epistemologies that inform educational practices as they pertain to Malayali culture and more specifically, the school’s culture. I employed a feminist methodological approach for its critiques of biased, androcentric, positivist epistemologies and its commitments to: valuing participants’ knowledge, representing the diversity of individuals, researcher reflexivity and acknowledgement of her/his social location, and forging pathways for social change and social justice. Constructivist epistemology was utilized as a solution to avoid pairing experiential teaching and student-centered research approaches with data analysis that favors ‘objectivity’ over the experiences of the learner.

Results:
I posit that citizenship as practiced in the classroom is often a microcosm of the community in which it exists. Historically, its definitions have been sculpted by colonialism while contemporarily, it often remains under the influence of neo-liberal agendas that maintain systems of oppression around identity politics including: gender, first/Third world, race, class, ability, and queer identities to name a few.

Solutions for harmonizing gender disparities and restoring cooperative education at the college may exist in the Malayali people’s history of political organizing. The People’s Planning Campaign (PPC) was inaugurated to democratically decentralize state level government in order to shift power to local governments and engage greater participatory democracy of marginalized groups—especially women. Here I suggest that employing the PPC model could decentralize top-down power held by school administrators, promote a more democratic learning environment, and lend to increased rights and self-agency for female learners and educators.

I suggest that the vocational college in this study is an ideal locus for the practice of inclusive citizenship because it is part of an institution developed to harmonize societal imbalances: in developing the school and in educating marginalized youth, the founder hoped that students would in turn improve their own communities. Furthermore, practicing inclusive citizenship has the power to make generational shifts in beliefs about women’s rights to practice citizenship holistically. That is, normalizing and reinforcing women’s roles as active citizens in the classroom, has the potential to expand male students’ understandings of the capacity and contributions of female students both inside the classroom and in the greater public sphere, thus potentially creating increased acceptance and advocacy for women by men.

Significance to the Field:
While the nexus of this research is located in Kerala, India, I propose that the topic is relevant to schools and learning around the globe for its ability to foster cooperation and collaboration, and increase community engagement by conscientiously redefining citizenship in more meaningful, inclusive, and productive ways.

References:
Aikman, S., & Unterhalter, E. (2005). Beyond access: Transforming policy and practice for gender equality in education. Oxford: Oxfam.

Kellner, D. (2009). Marxian perspectives on educational philosophy: From classical marxism to critical pedagogy. Retrieved February 1, 2012, from http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/marxianperspectivesoneducation.pdf

Author

• Stephanie Nahima Glick, University of British Columbia