Becoming a Feminist Educator: A Self-Study Exploring Possibilities of Feminist Pedagogy in Higher Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the process of becoming a feminist educator as the author employed feminist theory in her pedagogy for the first time. This self-study answered the research question: ‘What would a feminist pedagogy look like in a music history classroom?’ Throughout a ten-week undergraduate music history course, the author employed a research design based on autoethnography and autobiography in which data was collected from research journals, class sessions, dialogues with a critical friend, and student feedback. This self-study both illuminated and improved the author’s pedagogical practice as a newly conscious feminist educator. The author re-imagined knowing and being through a feminist lens as she experienced epistemological and ontological shifts in her pedagogy. The author’s feminist pedagogy unfolded through knowing herself as an educator, knowing the curriculum differently, and knowing through experience. Feminist pedagogy was also enacted through being in relationship with herself, being in relationship with others, and being in community. This self-study provides an example to educators in self-study of practice and in-service teachers of feminist pedagogy moving from theory to practice. It provides a discipline-specific example of resisting oppressive ways of knowing and being that exclude gendered experiences from educational spaces.