Introduction Critical Community Engagement: Feminist Pedagogy Meets Civic Engagement

Author(s): Costa, L. M. & Leong, K. J.
Date: 2012
Publication: Feminist Teacher
Citation: Costa, L. M., & Leong, K. J. (2012). Introduction Critical Community Engagement: Feminist Pedagogy Meets Civic Engagement. Feminist Teacher, 22(3), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.22.3.0171
Section on webpage: Feminist Pedagogy – Online
Tenets: Connecting to the personal and to communities outside of academia. Promoting reflexivity. Building equity, trust, mutual respect, and support. Uncovering the causes of inequality and leveraging resources toward undoing power structures. Honoring diversity and lived experiences through intersectional approaches. Examining the “why” in addition to the “what”. Cultivating self-care and boundaries.
Annotation: Exploration of how civic engagement has remained a contested topic among feminist academics. The work goes on to discuss how civic engagement has always been a part of Women and Gender Studies’ (WGS) academics work, but how it is often discredited due to the fact that it gets labeled as “activism.” The paper then goes on to demonstrate the critical approach that WGS scholars bring to their pedagogies, emphasizing their credibility. It then goes on to identify the themes that have been emerging in WGS scholar’s conversations surrounding civic engagement and the dynamics of entering the national civic engagement movement on terms other than their own.