Teaching Feminist Economics through Student-Written Diaries

Abstract

As a heterodox, economics paradigm, feminist economics seeks to improve women’s economic status and reduce the androcentric bias in economics. Thus, teaching feminist economics involves teaching students different ways of analyzing social inequalities and how to access more emotionally connected aspects of human behavior. This article argues that using student-written ‘gender diaries’ serves as an important pedagogical device for teaching feminist economics, because diaries enable students to more fully consider social inequalities and critique the masculine-centered features of neoclassical economics. Furthermore, when the diary approach is used in tandem with traditional lectures, this may serve to challenge gendered pedagogical dualisms which pose lectures and diaries in gendered oppositions to one another rather than envisioning them as complementary human ways of teaching. A case-study is presented from a “Women in the Economy” course in which students kept a gender diary. An analysis of a survey of the students indicates that the majority of students found the diary to be both a pleasurable and useful pedagogical device, and recommended continued use of the diary specifically for this course. Students were less enthusiastic in recommending the diary for use in other economics courses.