Pondering Pedagogical Paradoxes

Abstract

At the 2008 meeting of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender, I attended a panel focused on confronting feminist paradoxes. Panel convener Erika Kirby facilitated a conversation about difficult moments feminists face that cause us to reflect on our values and how we apply them in our everyday lives. In small groups, we participants talked about reconciling feminism with heterosexual relationships, religious faith, views about human sexuality, wardrobe choices, and many other topics where we seem to navigate tensions in our feminist principles and practices. As I read the four books that make up this review essay, that panel resonated with me again. As feminist teachers (and scholars, activists, and thinkers), we face paradoxes regularly. The four books reviewed here, to varying degrees, may help us do that (or may complicate our work in productive ways). Laurie Cooper Stoll’s Race and Gender in the Classroom: Teachers, Privilege, and Enduring Social Inequalities takes up and leaves us with questions about how primary school teachers can or should address issues related to race and gender in their classrooms. In an argument I found persuasive and compelling, though not at all surprising, Stoll contends that teachers rely on a social equality maxim, an idea rooted in the myth of meritocracy, that assumes all students who work hard can succeed, regardless of their social locations. In an ostensibly postracial and postgendered America, people interpret information about race and gender Review Essay Pondering Pedagogical Paradoxes