Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - D4110031
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED348115 AUTHOR: Davis, Fran; Nemiroff, Greta Hofmann
TITLE: Gender Fairness in the Classroom: Theory and Praxis.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1992
NOTE: 34 p.; Summary of a paper presented at the Annual
Conference of the Association of Canadian Community
Colleges (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 24-27, 1992).
ABSTRACT: Both Women's Studies courses and the
mainstreaming of Women's Studies material within the
regular disciplines are essential pedagogical strategies
for making curriculum responsive to the gendered context of
schools, but it is also important to formulate a
gender-fair model of education. After explaining the need
for and benefits of gender-fair education, this paper
presents criteria for gender-fair epistemology, curriculum,
and pedagogy through examining and critiquing five learning
models and presenting examples of feminist pedagogy
appropriate to the gender-fair classroom. The objectives of
gender-fair education are defined as seeking to enable
students to develop a critical perspective toward all
knowledge, and to empower all students to become equal and
active participants in this critical educational process.
The five pedagogical models critiqued are: (1) "Talking
Head" pedagogy, which seeks to reproduce the common wisdom
of established knowledge; (2) "Humanistic Education," in
which learners and teachers interact to produce knowledge;
(3) "Critical Pedagogy," in which teachers and learners
produce knowledge through a collective examination of their
socio-economic situations; (4) "Early Feminist Pedagogy,"
which emphasizes the collective production of knowledge,
focusing on gender and sexism as universals; and (5)
"Critical Humanism," which combines the thinking of
humanists, critical pedagogues, and feminist educators, and
centers the problems of race, social class, ethnicity, and
sexual orientation. (Author/PAA)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Critical-Thinking; Educational-Change;
Educational-Discrimination; Educational-Theories; Females-;
Foreign-Countries; Higher-Education; Humanism-; Instruction
; Males-; Models-; Sex-Bias; Teacher-Student-Relationship
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Classroom-Environment; *Epistemology-;
*Feminism-; *Learning-Theories; *Sex-Fairness; *Womens
Studies
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