Feminist pedagogy is pushing forty, but she is still turning heads in the sciences. Slow to enter the science and engineering disciplines for a host of reasons, feminist pedagogy is now bringing new energy to some fields—such as engineering, physics, chemistry, and computer sciences—that have been unable to attract the new talents they need to remain vibrant.

When women’s studies emerged at the end of the sixties, it offered more than a new way of examining the world: it offered a new way of teaching. Applying a gender lens to how students were taught was as important as examining what students were taught. In science disciplines that continue to lose white women students and women and men of color—or never attract them in sufficient numbers to begin with—educators are now turning to feminist pedagogies, often unnamed as such, to alter the situation. It is time for these educators to acknowledge the source of their newly transformative work.

Approaches that Work

This issue of OCWW examines women’s progress in the sciences and the role of feminist pedagogies in that progress. Drawing on AAC&U’s forthcoming report, A Measure of Equity: Women’s Progress in Higher Education, the issue zeroes in on some recalcitrant fields that continue to attract disturbingly low numbers of white women and women and men of color. These fields include engineering, physical sciences, and computer sciences, where women’s shares of participation remain strikingly low, particularly at the MA and PhD levels.

In their articles for this issue, Sue Rosser at Georgia Tech and Lorelle Espinosa at UCLA describe efforts to shift pedagogies in these fields to increase women’s participation. These attempts seem to be working, as recent graduate Elise Niedermeier attests. A humanitarian who had been science-averse, Elise credits the power of feminist pedagogy for opening the world of science to her. 

This issue’s authors agree that feminist pedagogy begins with giving students voice, working in small groups where collaborative learning is the norm, and having high expectations of student achievement. Feminist pedagogy also involves putting science in its social, historical, and economic contexts and asking students to solve problems that are socially and personally relevant. Espinosa in particular emphasizes that in teaching students of color, it is especially important to link scientific study to application that can benefit students’ communities or improve society in general. The benefits these authors describe promise to improve the science classroom not just for women, but for all students.                                   

The Legacy of Feminist Pedagogy

These twenty-first-century classroom approaches are not new: they distinguished feminist pedagogy as long as four decades ago. When women’s studies was among the majors AAC&U examined in its 1990 report Arts and Sciences Majors and Liberal Education: Reports from the Fields, the positive outcomes of these pedagogies were already evident. In student questionnaires distributed in 1989-1990 by members of eleven disciplinary taskforces, women’s studies ranked highest in ten of fourteen categories. In this unpublished AAC&U study, four of the top rankings are especially relevant to the pedagogies to which the STEM fields are now turning. Students gave women’s studies the highest marks for connecting different kinds of knowledge (89.2 percent); connecting course materials and assignments to personally significant questions (86.5 percent); identifying and exploring problems in the field in relation to significant questions for society (97.3 percent); and exploring values and ethics important to the major (81.1 percent).

Similarly, in the FIPSE-funded study The Courage to Question: Women’s Studies and Student Learning (which I directed from 1989 to 1992), the executive summary revealed that “data from all seven assessment studies indicate that women’s studies classes are usually more participatory, inclusive, and experiential than non-women’s studies courses, and typically involve more collaborative projects, class discussion, and practical applications of what students are learning.” That same study also tracked students’ trajectory in women’s studies courses as they moved from finding their voices, to self-empowerment, and finally to expressing social responsibility to a larger community.                                     

In 1996, the National Science Foundation released a landmark report, Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology. The report recommended a set of reforms that echoed the very principles of feminist pedagogy established two and a half decades earlier: student-centered classrooms; active, engaged, participatory learning; problem-solving in groups; and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to real world issues.

The legacy continues today. AAC&U’s recently released study by George Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (2008), suggests that the most successful pedagogies are those that nurture the very learning goals at the heart of feminist pedagogy. Importantly, Kuh’s study reveals the particular relevance of these techniques to students of color, who benefit even more than their white counterparts from access to these pedagogies.                       

The Value of Naming Names

If the contemporary women’s movement learned one lesson above all, it was to be vigilant about safeguarding the story of how women have shaped history and transformed societies. Unearthing women’s agency over cultures and centuries was the major enterprise of women’s studies in the last half of the twentieth century, and the history of women’s contributions to knowledge must never again be erased. It is thus essential to acknowledge that the very pedagogies that promise to improve the sciences today are, in fact, feminist pedagogies. 

By now these pedagogies have been tested, refined, and proven effective. And ironically, although the sciences have historically shut women out, feminist pedagogies may bring new energy to languishing fields. Middle aged and still strutting her stuff, feminist pedagogy is worth another look.  

References

Kuh, G. 2008. High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Musil, C. M. 1992. The courage to question: Women’s studies and student learning. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges.

National Science Foundation. 1996. Shaping the future: New expectations for undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation.

Touchton, J. 2008 (forthcoming). A measure of equity: Women’s progress in higher education. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.