Reproductive and resistant pedagogies: The comparative roles of collaborative learning and feminist pedagogy in science education
✍ Scribed by Maralee Mayberry
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 61 KB
- Volume
- 35
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-4308
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The underrepresentation of women (and men of color) in science has motivated many science educators to develop innovate classroom pedagogies aimed at making science courses and curricula more attractive and inviting to all students. One dominant approach to reforming science education is to transform how students learn by implementing collaborative approaches to learning in the classroom. Feminist pedagogy is an alternative approach to science education reform that is concerned with transforming both how students of science learn and the science curriculum that students are expected to learn. This article first compares and contrasts collaborative learning and feminist pedagogy. It then addresses the implications and consequences of each for science education. The theoretical and epistemological foundations of each approach demonstrates that choosing a classroom pedagogy is not an apolitical act. Collaborative approaches to science education serve to reproduce the dominant discourse of existing science systems. In contrast, feminist pedagogy resists the dominant discourse and invites all students to learn science, but more important, it invites them also to critically analyze existing scientific systems and the relationship of those systems to power, oppression, and domination.