Table of Contents

Feminist Pedagogy – Online
Feminist Pedagogy – General

Feminist Pedagogy – Online

Ai, C. Y. (2016). A Feminist Pedagogy Through Online Education. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 22(4), 372–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2016.1242939.

  • This paper explores “the current practice of online education from a gender perspective,” and, “how it can serve both as an opportunity and a limitation for women, particularly in Asia.” The author also looks into an example of gender education in a Korean online university, and uses this to offer suggestions to, “substantively and systematically supplement and activate online gender education not only in Korea but elsewhere in Asia as well.”

Aneja, A. (2017). Blending In: Reconciling Feminist Pedagogy and Distance Education Across Cultures. Gender and Education 29(7), 850–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1237621.

  • In this article, the author discusses distance education’s possible outreach to non-traditional women scholars and the pedagogy of a successful hybrid classroom teaching feminism. She mentions the benefits this type of learning has in developing countries and the challenges that many such pedagogies face such as subversions and transgressions and the ways to overcome them.

Bailey, C. (2017). Online Feminist Pedagogy: A New Doorway into Our Brick-and-Mortar Classrooms? Feminist Teacher 27(2–3), 253–66. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.27.2-3.0253.

  • In this paper, the author discusses several tenets of feminist pedagogy and how they intersect with virtual learning. She mentions many benefits and challenges to feminist teaching in this online space and provides strategies for ensuring the best possible virtual classroom environment.

Bond, N. (2019). Reflections on Forming a Virtually Feminist Pedagogy. The Scholarly Teacher. https://www.scholarlyteacher.com/post/reflections-on-forming-a-virtually-feminist-pedagogy.

  • The author discusses how virtual feminist pedagogy can, “promote pathways to the personal,” “shake up tradition and shift agency to students.” The author gives several strategies for completing these goals in the online classroom.

Briggs, L. & McBride, K. B. (2005). Distance Education: A Manifesto for Women’s Studies. In E. L. Kennedy & A. Beins (Eds.), Women’s Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics (pp. 314–25). Rutgers University Press. https://tulane.box.com/s/r9hp1xbbxren7sh1tkndwyxdp06hc8t4.

  • In this chapter, the authors give strategies for making distance education more, “women friendly,” through the analysis of several models and examples of feminist pedagogies in the online classroom.

Cabaniss, E., & Parrotta, K. (2022, April 13). Scavenger Hunts & Photo essays: Helping Students See Inequality in the World Around Them Through Project-Based Learning. DigitalCommons@CalPoly. Retrieved February 28, 2023, from https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol2/iss2/2/  

Chick, N. & Hassel, H. (2009). ‘Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Virtual’: Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom. Feminist Teacher 19(3), 195–215. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40546100?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.

  • The authors describe why moving feminist pedagogy to the online environment is important to keep up with the trends in education. By giving strategies for creating positive classroom dynamics and environments and discussing how online education gives students the opportunity to bridge classroom knowledge to their personal lives, the authors argue that digital learning can be just as rewarding and in-person class.

Collingwood, S. L., Quintana, A. E., & Smith, C. J. (2012). Feminist Cyberspaces: Pedagogies in Transition. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. https://bookshop.org/books/feminist-cyberspaces-pedagogies-in-transition/9781443836333.

  • This book is a collection of essays that explore how new media technologies are being used in the feminist classroom. The collection has been structured to reflect the multifaceted nature of education today; learning takes place on a personal level through independent study and social media, it takes place at a local level in our classrooms and lecture halls, but it is also increasingly taking place on a global scale as new technologies foster international collaboration between individuals and organizations. In addition, there is a growing acceptance of learning in the collaborative 3-D classrooms of virtual worlds. These educational spaces are not mutually exclusive, as the contributions to this volume make clear. The anthology explores how technology is being used in antiviolence teaching, art education, HIV and AIDS education, and other specialized topics, but it also gives many examples of innovations in teaching introductory courses. The technology used ranges from the implementation of course management systems for large university classes to the use of digital storytelling in small groups outside the university. It also explores technology for removing barriers to people with disabilities in both traditional and online classrooms. The collection is not a how to book, but it does use practical experience as a basis for feminist theorizing of the classroom. All of the essays look at the use of new technology in the light of feminist pedagogy, seeking new ways to foster provocative, creative and non-hierarchical learning that transcends the physical boundaries of the university.

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  

  • 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.

FemTechNet. (2020). Feminist Pedagogy in a Time of Coronavirus Pandemic. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://femtechnet.org/feminist-pedagogy-in-a-time-of-coronavirus-pandemic/.

  • The authors describe what they have learned about online education while organizing as an international network. They list many observations about online learning and feminist collectivity.

Gajjala, R., Behrmann, E. M., Birzescu, A., Corbett, A., & Bondor, K. F. (2017). Epistemologies of Doing: Engaging Online Learning through Feminist Pedagogy. In E. Losh (Ed.), MOOCs and Their Afterlives. University of Chicago Press. https://chicago.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226469591.001.0001/upso-9780226469317-chapter-010.

  • The authors in this article describe unique methods for teaching feminist pedagogies using social media and creating safe spaces for students on these platforms. The authors provide tools for building an environment of mutual respect and support and integrating cooperative learning to build these spaces.

Herman, C., & Kirkup, G. (2017). Combining Feminist Pedagogy and Transactional Distance to Create Gender-Sensitive Technology-Enhanced Learning. Gender and Education 29(6), 781–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1187263.

  • In this paper, the authors, “argue for a new synthesis of two pedagogic theories: feminist pedagogy and transactional distance, which explain why and how distance education has been such a positive system for women in a national distance learning university.” Using, “examples of positive action initiatives for women,” the authors demonstrate how, “feminist distance learning… has offered successful technology-enhanced learning and educational opportunities.”

Howard, J. T. & Tabor R. (2023). From a Crisis Response to Feminist Talking Circles: Reconsidering Collaborative Feedback Practices in the Digital Humanities. International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing. 17(2). https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/ijhac.2023.0308

  • Digital humanities (DH) scholars have examined how feminist methodologies promote inclusive practices to value all stages of the development process. DH scholars can learn from feminist educators, however, about how to extend ‘cultures of care’ in DH learning spaces around feedback processes. Centering these feminist tenets, the Technology and Digital Humanities Lab at Newcomb Institute models strategies for how mentors in DH labs and classrooms can use digital tools to adapt during and beyond crises to build cultures of care intentionally and set up supportive spaces for giving and receiving feedback.

Hopkins, A. H. (1996). Women’s Studies on Television? It’s Time for Distance Learning. NWSA Journal 8(2), 91-106. Retrieved October 12, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4316442.

  • This article discusses one professor’s job teaching the only live-cable introductory women’s studies survey course in her region. At the time of this article, this was one of only four women’s studies courses being taught in the United States. The author discusses both the obstacles she faced and the strategies she used to overcome them.

Kramarae, C. (1997). Technology Policy, Gender, and Cyberspace. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 4(1), 149–58. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djglp/vol4/iss1/7/.

  • The author discusses various aspects and strategies of online learning that are important for feminist pedagogy. These include making cyberspace hospitable, participatory education, and inclusion of women’s knowledge in electronic education.

Koseoglu, S. (2020). Access as Pedagogy: A Case for Embracing Feminist Pedagogy in Open and Distance Learning. Asian Journal Distance Education, 15(1), 277–90. https://zenodo.org/record/3893260#.YUi0GWZKg6g.

  • In this article, the author argues for a greater embracing of feminist pedagogy in distance education. She states that she views “feminist pedagogy as an ethical position as well as a pedagogical position that calls attentive ways of looking into structuring educational services, methods, policies, and legislations that create an inclusive learning space not just for women, but for all students who are disadvantaged in their education. Within this context, student participation can be framed as a means for transformation, contributing to one’s well-being, agency and sense of power.”

Lai, A., and Lu, L. (2009). Integrating Feminist Pedagogy with Online Teaching: Facilitating Critiques of Patriarchal Visual Culture. Visual Culture & Gender 4, 58–68. https://www.vcg.emitto.net/index.php/vcg/article/view/41.

  • In this article, the authors explore the intersectionality of asynchronous online discussion, feminist visual culture pedagogy, and online pedagogy. Specifically, the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) as example of a quality online feminist pedagogy. As the authors discuss, IAM, “recognizes five cognitive activities involved in construction of knowledge through online discussions: (a) sharing and comparing of ideas, (b) cognitive dissonance, (c) co-constructing knowledge, (d) assessing proposed constructions, and (e) applying newly constructed knowledge.” They also bring up several problems in this model and how to overcome them such as, “ the lack of women’s voices, dearth of resources to understand women’s creativity, gender stereotypes in classical mythology, gender inequality in the art world, and learning about women’s lives through their creative works rather than the written records promoting male dominance.”

Losh, E. (2017). Transforming Higher Education with Distributed Open Collaborative Courses (DOCCs): Feminist Pedagogies and Networked Learning. FEMtechnet.org. https://www.academia.edu/4490117/Transforming_Higher_Education_with_Distributed_Open_Collaborative_Courses_DOCCs_Feminist_Pedagogies_and_Networked_Learning?email_work_card=view-paper.

Omolade, B. (1987). A Black Feminist Pedagogy. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 15(3/4), 32–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003434  

  • A work concerned with the experience of Black women in education, both in terms of pedagogy of Black women, by Black women, and for Black women, but also in terms of strategies that were developed due to marginality and isolation. This work focuses on the cultivation of an inclusive mindset by breaking down Western instruction procedures in terms of their exclusivity and chauvinism. There are three primary sections that the work is separated into: classroom power dynamics, the methodology of teaching writing skills, and mutual struggle for a better university.

Patterson, N. (2009). Distance Education: A Perspective from Women’s Studies. Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory & Culture 9 (1), 1-16. https://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/view/144/272C.E.

  • The author of this paper discusses a key problem of combining online distance learning and feminist pedagogy: “that distance education continually downplays the importance of a gender analysis despite the fact that women make up the majority of distance ed users.” This paper also discusses how distance learning techniques can be applied to in-class learning and how feminist teachers are increasingly using their experiences working in distance education to bridge the “gap between feminist pedagogy and distance education.”

Pownall, M. (2021). Encouraging Feminist Discussion in Asynchronous Online Teaching. Psychology of Women Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843211027479.

Purcell, J. W. (2017). Community-Engaged Pedagogy in the Virtual Classroom: Integrating EService-Learning Into Online Leadership Education. Journal of Leadership Studies 11(1), 65–70. https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1002%2Fjls.21515.

Richards, R. S. (2011). ‘I Could Have Told You That Wouldn’t Work’: Cyberfeminist Pedagogy in Action. Feminist Teacher 22(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.22.1.0005.

  • In this article, the author argues that feminist teachers who embrace Web 2.0 technologies as part of their teaching praxis need to theorize and articulate what they are calling cyberfeminist pedagogy. Cyberfeminist pedagogy, as the name implies, would draw on the theories and praxes informed by the diversity and emerging scholarship of cyberfeminism.

Rodríguez Milanés, C. & Denoyelles, A. (2014). Designing Critically: Feminist Pedagogy for Digital / Real Life. Hybrid Pedagogy. https://hybridpedagogy.org/designing-critically-feminist-pedagogy-digital-real-life/.

Romero-Hall, E. (2021). How to Embrace Feminist Pedagogies in Your Courses. Association for Educational Communication & Technology. https://interactions.aect.org/how-to-embrace-feminist-pedagogies-in-your-courses/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=aect-interactions-just-published_1.

Rose, E.C. (1995). ‘This Class Meets in Cyberspace’: Women’s Studies via Distance Education. Feminist Teacher 9(2), 53–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40545706.

  • In this paper, the author mentions many possible benefits to virtual feminist pedagogy such as, “meeting the instructional needs of a demographically diverse student population (including many who work fulltime or who live inconvenient distances from institutions of higher education) to pooling scarce resources in an increasingly stringent economy.” She also mentions several challenges of this type of learning, but offers up her own program, the Feminist Theories course via distance education to students at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), as a successful model of how to overcome many of these challenges.

Schweitzer, I. (2001). Women’s Studies Online: Cyberfeminism or Cyberhype?. Women’s Studies Quarterly 29(3), 187–217.https://www.jstor.org/stable/40003753.

  • “Schweitzer believes that Web technology constitutes the greatest opportunity for feminism and progressive politics in the new century. With certain very important caveats, Web technology and Web-related teaching have the potential to actualize some of the basic goals of feminism and feminist pedagogy.”

Sharoni, S. (2020). Reimagining a Feminist Virtual Classroom Amidst a Global Pandemic. SAGE Journals Blog. https://journalsblog.sagepub.com/blog/reimagining-a-feminist-virtual-classroom-amidst-a-global-pandemic.

Skwiot, E. (2017). Beyond Ms. Magazine: Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom. Colorado State University: Global Campus, Faculty Speaker Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXlWvM7xBNg. | Watch below:

Weiler, Kathleen. (1991). Freire and a Feminist Pedagogy of Difference. Harvard Educational Review. 1 December 1991; 61 (4): 449–475. doi: https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.61.4.a102265jl68rju8  

  • Educator Kathleen Weiler deconstructs Western knowledge systems using a feminist lens. In this work she references Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher, who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. By using her feminist lens, she is able to add a bit more breadth to Freire’s pedagogy. Her critiques are broken down into three sections: questioning of authority, personal experience as a source of knowledge, and exploration of the perspectives of a wider range of demographics. 

Feminist Pedagogy – General

Bondy, R., Light, T. P., & Nicholas, J. (2015). Feminist Pedagogy in Higher Education: Critical Theory and Practice. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/F/Feminist-Pedagogy-in-Higher-Education.  

  • This book discusses the processes employed to engage learners by challenging them to ask tough questions and craft complex answers, wrestle with timely problems and posit innovative solutions, and grapple with ethical dilemmas for which they seek just resolutions. Diverse experiences, interests, and perspectives―together with the various teaching and learning styles that participants bring to twenty-first-century universities―necessitate inventive and evolving pedagogical approaches, and these are explored from a critical perspective. The contributors collectively consider the implications of the theory/practice divide, which remains central within academic feminism’s role as both a site of social and gender justice and as a part of the academy, and map out some of the ways in which academic feminism is located within the academy today.

Crabtree, R., Sapp, D. A., & Licona, A. C. (2009). Feminist Pedagogy: Looking Back to Move Forward. The Johns Hopkins University Press. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/feminist-pedagogy. 

  • This collection of essays traces the evolution of feminist pedagogy over the past twenty years, exploring both its theoretical and its practical dimensions. Feminist pedagogy is defined as a set of epistemological assumptions, teaching strategies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships grounded in feminist theory. To apply this philosophy in the classroom, the editors maintain that feminist scholars must critically engage in dialogue and reflection about both what and how they teach, as well as how who they are affects how they teach. In identifying the themes and tensions within the field and in questioning why feminist pedagogy is particularly challenging in some educational environments, these articles illustrate how and why feminist theory is practiced in all kinds of classrooms. In exploring feminist pedagogy in all its complexities, the contributors identify the practical applications of feminist theory in teaching practices, classroom dynamics, and student-teacher relationships. This volume will help readers develop theoretically grounded classroom practices informed by the advice and experience of fellow practitioners and feminist scholars.

MacDonald, A., & Sánchez-Casal, S. (2002). Twenty-First-Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference. Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780312295349. 

  • This book is centrally concerned with crucial theoretical and practical aspects of teaching in the national and global borderlands of gender, race, and sexuality studies. The cross-cultural feminist focus of this anthology allows the contributors to consider the various ways in which global and national frameworks intersect in the classroom and in students’ thinking, and also the ways in which power and authority are developed, directed, and deployed in the feminist classroom. This volume provides a critical elaboration of provocative, self-reflexive questions for feminist cultural and intellectual practice for the 21st century. In doing so, the volume provides a site for engaged feminist self-criticism for the specific purpose of reinvigorating a critical pedagogical practice grounded in multicultural feminist identities.

Naples, N. A., & Bojar, K. (2002). Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from the Field. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-Feminist-Activism-Strategies-from-the-Field/Naples-Bojar/p/book/9780415931878. 

  • From theoretical analysis to practical teaching tools, an indispensable guide for educators seeking to link feminist theory and activism to their teaching. Included are web sites, videos, recommended texts, and additional course outlines.

Nowik, C. (2018). “Why Faculty Members Need to Explain Feminist Pedagogy,” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/10/05/why-faculty-members-need-explain-feminist-pedagogy-opinion. 

  • Discusses how feminist pedagogy drives Nowik’s decision making: “Three primary assumptions underpin my teaching: 1) that a power structure promoting agency and collective responsibility is the best environment for learning, 2) that community development is essential to individual growth and development in the writing classroom, and 3) that the development of good thinking is essential to liberty.”

Portuges, C., & Culley, M. (2014). Gendered Subjects: the Dynamics of Feminist Teaching. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Gendered-Subjects-RLE-Feminist-Theory-The-Dynamics-of-Feminist-Teaching/Portuges-Culley/p/book/9780415754170.

  • Gendered Subjects combines a number of classic statements on feminist pedagogy from the 1970s with recent original essays making significant and original contributions to the field. As the new scholarship on women has changed the content and structure of knowledge in every field, so this collection aims to mirror this impact on feminist pedagogy, with articles ranging from broad theoretical perspectives on the realities of the classroom to international explorations on how race, gender and class, and political orientation inform feminist enquiry.