Teaching at the Borders: Exploring the pedagogical challenges of Gender Studies Departments in Sweden
(2018) SIMV15 20181Graduate School
- Abstract
- Gender Studies departments have struggled to legitimize their own space in the Swedish academia from 70´s. Even when the institutionalization of Gender Studies can be told as a success story, its departments continue to be quite paradoxical spaces in the academia, where the feminist oppositional tendency seems to collide with academic standards and requirements. Additionally, this clash is aggravated by an increasingly neoliberal academia. This thesis seeks to unfold how the paradoxical position of Gender Studies influences the pedagogical practices of the departments and its teachers. The study consists of a two-layered analysis where the main challenges at an institutional and pedagogical level were identified and analyzed. In order to... (More)
- Gender Studies departments have struggled to legitimize their own space in the Swedish academia from 70´s. Even when the institutionalization of Gender Studies can be told as a success story, its departments continue to be quite paradoxical spaces in the academia, where the feminist oppositional tendency seems to collide with academic standards and requirements. Additionally, this clash is aggravated by an increasingly neoliberal academia. This thesis seeks to unfold how the paradoxical position of Gender Studies influences the pedagogical practices of the departments and its teachers. The study consists of a two-layered analysis where the main challenges at an institutional and pedagogical level were identified and analyzed. In order to do so, a qualitative study was conducted with a phenomenological orientation, through which nine in-depth interviews were conducted with Gender Studies teachers working in different universities in Sweden. Using Borderlands concepts by Chicana feminists and radical pedagogies, it is discussed that Gender Studies departments could be understood as borderlands, meaning that they exist between contradictory demands. These borders can also be found in the teaching practice, where teachers try to balance between different pedagogical demands, some of the borders identified through this study were the use of experience telling and/or theories; the use of emotions and/or rationality; the learning value of conflict and/or safety; and community-led and/or teacher-led classrooms. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8948282
- author
- Garduno Alvarado, Arlette Gabriela LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SIMV15 20181
- year
- 2018
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Gender Studies, Feminist academia, norm-critical pedagogies, feminist pedagogies, radical pedagogies, neoliberal academia, institutionalization
- language
- English
- id
- 8948282
- date added to LUP
- 2018-10-25 16:48:26
- date last changed
- 2018-10-25 16:48:26
@misc{8948282,
abstract = {{Gender Studies departments have struggled to legitimize their own space in the Swedish academia from 70´s. Even when the institutionalization of Gender Studies can be told as a success story, its departments continue to be quite paradoxical spaces in the academia, where the feminist oppositional tendency seems to collide with academic standards and requirements. Additionally, this clash is aggravated by an increasingly neoliberal academia. This thesis seeks to unfold how the paradoxical position of Gender Studies influences the pedagogical practices of the departments and its teachers. The study consists of a two-layered analysis where the main challenges at an institutional and pedagogical level were identified and analyzed. In order to do so, a qualitative study was conducted with a phenomenological orientation, through which nine in-depth interviews were conducted with Gender Studies teachers working in different universities in Sweden. Using Borderlands concepts by Chicana feminists and radical pedagogies, it is discussed that Gender Studies departments could be understood as borderlands, meaning that they exist between contradictory demands. These borders can also be found in the teaching practice, where teachers try to balance between different pedagogical demands, some of the borders identified through this study were the use of experience telling and/or theories; the use of emotions and/or rationality; the learning value of conflict and/or safety; and community-led and/or teacher-led classrooms.}},
author = {{Garduno Alvarado, Arlette Gabriela}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Teaching at the Borders: Exploring the pedagogical challenges of Gender Studies Departments in Sweden}},
year = {{2018}},
}