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Abstract: The classroom is a dynamic location for knowledge construction through shared experiences. Feminist pedagogy is introduced as a teaching methodology responsive to classroom diversity by creating space for students' experiences and promoting student voices. Deconstruction of teacher/learner dualism between primary instructor and doctoral student illustrates feminist pedagogy in action during a teaching practicum.
Keywords: doctoral student, feminist pedagogy, research, social work, teaching.
Accredited social work curriculum mandates content on human diversity, social and economic justice, and populations at risk (Council on Social Work Education). Increased enrollment of students of diversity, those who may identify as people of color, sexual "minorities", students with dis"abilities", or non-traditional ages, poses a challenge for course content to be more inclusive and teaching methodology to be more responsive to all members of any given course. The social work classroom has become more than multicultural or multiethnic. It is the location where tomorrow's community context is forged today.
The process of education can serve two purposes, to maintain the status quo or to continually push for collective liberation. In the diverse classroom we are confronted not to simply develop social workers that assist oppressed groups' accommodation to societal oppression, but who strive for a libratory process with individuals, families or groups. This process starts in the classroom just as Freire's (1970) work centered on helping the peasant class of Guinea-Bissau into a subject position, so must the social work classroom recognize "those most disenfranchised suffer the gravest weight of oppressive forces" (p. 53). "In order for education to be liberating, education itself must be liberated" (Lelwica, 1999:79). Feminist pedagogy is one possible teaching methodology towards a more inclusive classroom environment that fosters individual and collective growth of life long learners regardless of position.
Collectively women of all diversities disproportionately represent a greater portion of the student body in many social work programs. However, women generally hold fewer tenured faculty or administrative positions in agencies (Dressel, 1992; Sowers-Hoag & Harrison, 1991) resulting in curricula and methodologies primarily determined by men. Female educators are often overwhelmed with multiple unspecified responsibilities in their jobs while maintaining the general areas of teaching, research and service. Therefore, opportunities for professional role modeling are limited for women students who should consider careers in academia. This is...