Themes of a Critical/Feminist Pedagogy: Teacher Education for Democracy

Abstract

Critical/feminist pedagogy provides a framework for teacher education in a democratic society. It involves future teachers in development of pedagogical relations supporting the acquisition of the skills of democratic participation. In this article, I discuss these themes and provide a framework for implementing teacher education supportive of the democratic purpose of schooling. Themes of Critical/Feminist Pedagogy Critical/feminist pedagogy has its source in critical and feminist theories. It has emerged in reaction to the technocratic perspective (Adler & Goodman, 1986, p. 2) and associated control-oriented pedagogy dominating educational thought and practice. Critical/feminist pedagogy challenges the emphasis on efficiency and objectivity that perpetuate the domination of masculine rationality (Apple, 1990; Giroux, 1988b; Goodman, 1992). Critical/feminist pedagogy is a different way of thinking about the relationship of schools and society and the hierarchical social relations for teaching/learning contexts (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985; Giroux, 1983, 1988a, 1988b; Goodman, 1986, 1987, 1992; Grumet, 1981; Hicks, 1990; Weiler, 1988). Schools and Society The role of schools in perpetuating unequal social, cultural, political, and economic realities is a central theme of critical and feminist theorists who agree that schools serve the power of dominant ideologies and beliefs (e.g., Apple, 1990; Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Freire, 1973; Giroux, 1988a, 1988b; Goodman, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1992; Lather, 1984, 1991; Shor & Freire, 1987; Weiler, 1988). A critical perspective problematizes the institutionalization of the dominant beliefs and interests that control and determine social relationships and the teaching/learning process. Schools may reproduce socioeconomic interests through ideological messages embedded in the organizational structure of colleges, universities, and schools (e.g., Bowles & Gintis, 1976). A less deterministic view is that schools are structured according to the workplace through the hidden curriculum. In this view, schools contribute to inequality in that they are tacitly organized to differentially distribute specific kinds of knowledge . . . normative and dispositional elements . . . of the most powerful classes in this society (Apple & King, 1990, p. 43). Aronowitz and Giroux (1985) believe that structured silences permeate all school and classroom relations and give a universal quality to particular views of work, authority, social rules, and logic within the wider society (p. 75). A more dialectic view of the critical perspective is that people in schooling are not passive recipients of existing institutions and practice; the dominant culture does not entirely suppress subordinate ones (Adler & Goodman, 1986, p. 3). In this view, contradictions exist within the dominant ideologies perpetuated as practices and cultures through the technocratic perspective (Giroux, 1983). The emphasis on self-reliance with a self-determined view of individuality set apart from social, cultural, economic, and historical elements of society is one contradiction. The ethos of individualism intersects with economic interests and the influences of patriarchy within schools so that schools emphasize control, conformity, and adaptation to economic roles in society through the technocratic perspective for educational practice (Bullough, Goldstein, & Holt, 1984; Franklin, 1986; Goodman, 1992). Social aspects of individuality are suppressed while what students learn accords with self-interests and personal gain in the public realm of existence (Elshtain, 1981; Goodman, 1992). The ethos of individualism pervades schooling and all elements of society and perpetuates the view that self-enclosed individuals, apart from their historical, social, and cultural dimensions of social existence, achieve by learning what is out there (Adler & Goodman, 1986, p. …