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"Student Resistance and Nationalism in the
Classroom: Some Reflections on Globalizing the Curriculum" Hase discusses the significance of nation as a category in understanding and analyzing "women's" experiences and the role of nationalism as an element of the student resistance encountered in her classroom. She draws upon her experience of teaching American students about global gender issues, arguing for the need to consider issues of nationalism in the classroom and and the relevance of "nation" as a category of analysis in women's studies teaching. Hase relates her own experiences and challenges, and discusses how this category "nation" shapes women's varied experiences and positions. She concludes with suggesting how the power dynamics in a "global classroom" where the professor is a non-U.S. woman of color and the students are Americans can be used as an opportunity to examine issues of nation and nationalism. "FemiQueer
PedagogieS: 'Lesbian/Gay' Studies in Postmodern Women's Studies" Pedagogies also reflect and define postmodernity in Women's Studies. This discussion focuses on the authors' experience(s) teaching a Lesbian and Gay Studies course in Women's Studies. They examine the constant tension they felt at having to legitimate the course at the very basic level while also trying to teach it in terms of current research and theory. They identify three trends in Women's Studies that are highlighted by this pedagogical puzzle encountered in teaching Lesbian and Gay Studies. They strategies are offered to address these challenges, explaining that they are derived both from a "feminist pedagogy" and a "queer pedagogy" (i.e., "femiqueer pedagogies"). They conclude by discussing how their experiences of teaching with multiple, intersecting pedagogies is both a characteristic of and means by which to construct Women's Studies as a postmodern project. "Teaching as Activism and Excuse: A
Reconsideration of the Theory-Practice Dichotomy" How one conceives of theory and practice and the relative importance of each greatly affects how one characterizes teaching in the context of activism. The author examines her encounter with an apparent disagreement between two African-American, anti-racist feminist scholars, bell hooks and Joy James, based on the nature and function of theory (describing, for the most part, ideas and concepts) on the one hand, and activism (usually emphasizing concrete interaction with the social and political world), on the other. Then she points out and discusses the more plausible notion of praxis, which calls into question the sharp distinction between theory and practice, holding instead that what is meaningfully political, transformative, liberatory, and revolutionary is theory-informed practice. As theoretical, thinking beings who are at once socially and historically enmeshed, it is "praxis" which best reflects what we are capable of. "Student
Perceptions of Gender in the Curriculum: The Effects of the MWC Race and
Gender Requirement" In the fall of 1997, Mary Washington College instituted a new general studies education curriculum. In addition to the requirements common to many liberal arts colleges (e.g., lab science, foreign language, mathematics, English, etc.), the new curriculum at Mary Washington College contains several across the curriculum requirements, patterned after the college's successful writing across-the-curriculum requirement. To fulfill this requirement, students must complete at least one course that integrates the study of race and gender issues into course material. The authors outline the development of the race and gender intensive courses at the college and report the results of a study designed to evaluate the effect of the new requirement on student perceptions of gender content in their courses. "Slingshot or Popgun? And the
Goose and the Gander Problem: Short-Term and Long-Term Achievement Effects
of Single-Sex Math Classes in a Coeducational Middle School" Several studies done in single-sex schools suggest that there are advantages of single-sex math classes for girls. A smaller number, performed in coeducational institutions, show similar results. But few studies have simultaneously examined the effects of single-sex math classes for both girls and boys in coeducational institutions. And fewer still examine what happens when students who have experienced single-sex classes are reintroduced to a coeducational teaching environment. This study examines what happens to both boys and girls when they are introduced to single-sex math classes and finds that both groups seem to benefit, at least when academic achievement is measured using nationally-normed math tests. Moreover, the study looks at what happens when both boys and girls who have experienced single-sex math classes are reintroduced to coeducational math classes and finds that both groups seem to do better in the coeducational environment than counterparts who had never been in single-sex classes. |