Abstract
ABSTRACT Previous research identifies the importance of feminist knowledge for improving gender equity, economic prosperity and social justice for all. However, there are difficulties in embedding feminist knowledge in higher education curricula. Across England, undergraduate sociology is a key site for acquiring feminist knowledge. In a study of four English sociology departments, Basil Bernstein's theoretical concepts and Madeleine Arnot's notion of gender codes frame an analysis indicating that sociology curricula in which feminist knowledge is strongly classified in separate modules is associated with more women being personally transformed. Men's engagement with feminist knowledge is low and it does not become more transformative when knowledge is strongly classified. Curriculum, pedagogy and gender codes are all possible contributors to these different relationships with feminist knowledge across the sample of 98 students.
Highlights
This paper explores the role that feminist knowledge, embedded in sociology curricula in four English universities, plays in transforming undergraduate students so that they have the potential to contribute to developing a more gender equal society
Elliot from Selective talks about his codes regarding class having been changed. His focus on teenage pregnancy and the unfairness of judging young women is somewhat secondary to his interest in class codes. This does involve the type of deep learning we describe in women above, but it is not so much in relation to gender codes and feminist knowledge: And I find that really interesting, people’s attitudes towards girls that choose to have a baby from a young age, but how we sort of demonise people based on their class
Undergraduate sociology offers an important site where knowledges and skills regarding how to analyse gender inequality and develop strategies to overcome it can be learned about. This analysis of curricula and discussion of students’ engagement through pedagogies has suggested that the specialised pedagogic identity acquired by sociology students in the four degrees we studied does not sufficiently incorporate feminist knowledge, for male students
Summary
This paper explores the role that feminist knowledge, embedded in sociology curricula in four English universities, plays in transforming undergraduate students so that they have the potential to contribute to developing a more gender equal society. Governments and policy makers have renewed interest in higher education curricula but there is danger that their narrowly focused economic concerns might undermine opportunities for transformations which enhance democracy and global well-being (Nussbaum, 1998, 2010; Small, 2013). There is little research internationally that explores, in an overarching way, the “dynamics of inequalities” that are created through curricula and pedagogic processes that have been generated by the globalization of higher education (Unterhalter and Carpentier, 2010, p.19). This paper begins to engage with some of the challenges of that task
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