Feminist Pedagogy In Education

Feminist pedagogy is an educational philosophy that seeks to create “equal access, participation, and engagement” for all students through the active opposition of racism, sexism, homophobia, and social status prejudice as barriers to classroom equality and success (p.) It seeks to dismantle the power hierarchies present in society that reinforcement these prejudices and strives to empower students to become agents of social change.
Rooted in the women’s movement of the 1960s, feminist scholars study the various ways in which women and girls have been historically disadvantaged by traditional patriarchal classroom structures. As such, feminist educators argue that in order to create a classroom environment that benefits women and girls, classrooms

Coined by feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectional feminism refers to the different ways in which race and gender interact to shape the many intersections of Black women’s experiences (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1244). Since its conception, intersectional feminist thought has grown to not only include the experiences of Black women, but to also examine how gender expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status (SES), and ability all interact to determine an individual’s privilege or lack thereof (LaMantia, Wagner, and Bohecker, 2015). Within a classroom setting, recognizing the complexities of intersectionality is vital to understanding the needs and experiences of each student. According to LaMantia, Wagner, and Bohecker (2015), “intersectionality is an awareness of difference, oppression, and the consequences of these interactions in terms of power,” (p.) and as such, intersectionality can provide a voice to individuals who are subject to multiple forms of oppression and marginalization within society. Therefore, a classroom that takes an intersectional feminist pedagogical approach is able to empower all students, regardless of identity, to meet their full potential. Consequently, I believe that intersectional feminist pedagogy is an important tool with which Ontario educators can use in their increasingly diversifying classrooms in order to empower all groups of

Through her study, Lane found that Black feminist pedagogy has the ability to promote positive development of social and academic identities among African American girls (p.?). Black feminist pedagogy is a specific sub-section of feminist pedagogy that maintains that “African American women have historically faced interlocking forms of oppression, which include economic, political, and ideological stratification” (p.?).
Lane’s study found that Black girls are often face particular difficulties in the classroom. She found that while African American elementary school girls often acted in a passive and shy manner, outside the classroom these same girls appeared to be outspoken and self-assured. This finding lead to Lane to explore the reasons behind this occurrence, and she found that there are many systematic structures in place that encourage the subordination of Black female youth and socialize them to be “silent, accommodating, and passive recipients of schooling”