Browsing by Subject "feministinen pedagogiikka"

The purpose of this study was to find out how diversity is presented in contemporary chil-dren’s picturebooks. The theoretical background of the study was based on feminist peda-gogy, gender studies and cultural studies. The aim of the study was to describe, analyze and interpret the discourses of diversity in children's picturebooks written in 2012–2021. The main interest was in the means of making diversity a part of everyday life’s representa-tion. The phenomena were examined intersectionally. Previous studies (see e.g., Pesonen 2015a, 2015b, 2017; Heikkilä-Halttunen 2013; Rastas 2013, Beezmohun 2013; Kokkola & Österlund 2014; Österlund 2008) have found that diversity is often presented in an exotic and ethnocentric way – through differences – but discourse is changing to describe diversity as a normal part of society. Representations of socially constructed categories such as citi-zenship, “race,” and gender are changing. The research material was produced by selecting picturebooks that presented diversity in some way as a principle. The purpose in studying discourses was to increase understand-ing of how hegemonic and dominant discourses were challenged in the selected picture-books. Poststructuralist feminist discourse analysis was used to analyze the material. Es-pecially power positions and agencies were examined. The study showed that in the ten children's picturebooks examined, diversity is mostly pre-sented as a normal, everyday and pervasive phenomenon. Three main discourses could be distinguished from the material, which were 1) children challenging the hegemonic norma-tive, 2) diversity as a normal part of society, and 3) requirement of equality: everyone has the right to be their own self. Modern children’s literature actively challenged dominant con-cepts of gender, “race,” ethnicity, language, age, and health status, but at the same time might have produced binary gender dichotomy. Nevertheless, all the books studied also created a new kind of diversity discourse and, in other words, actively reproduced concept of diversity.

This master ́s thesis examines feminist pedagogy and its discourses, possibilities and its necessity. Feminist pedagogy takes into account the questions of feminist theory about gender and other inter- secting differences and their effects. As well as the presence of power in education and the localization of knowledge and experiences. Many experiences of discrimination and exclusion have been identified in education, and it also maintains societal structures, positions and hierarchies and inequality-producing practices. Teachers are in the same way inside these structures, so that opportunities for change in power are offered through dissent. Feminist pedagogy provides tools to think differently and ask new kinds of questions. I interviewed six teachers at different levels of education who utilized feminist pedagogy in their teaching. In addition, they all had academic studies in the course offerings of women's or gender studies and/or feminist pedagogy. The interview material was analyzed by discourse analysis methods. The study is influenced by the guidelines and conceptualizations of feminist research. Feminist pedagogy is described as a tool and a support for thought, from which one theorist was borrowed something and from another something else, adapting it to their own teaching needs and situation. It offers new perspectives and ways to address topics that are discouraged by power discourse. It takes the form of a counter-discourse that questions, criticizes, and seeks to change power relations and internalized norms and practices in education. The possibilities of feminist pedagogy were related to the kind of issues that were raised, but also to the ways in which they were dealt with. Opportunities also include failures, where a pre-planned situation takes an unpredictable direction and leads to inappropriate interaction situations from the teacher’s perspective. The possibilities of feminist pedagogy also provide avenues for distributing power more evenly in the classroom. It is needed to shake up the grievances in education, to take into account gender and other differences and their effects, and to create practices that produce hierarchies. It ́s also needed to question everything that is presented as neutral and non-political, when in reality power is intertwined with such a talk, but also with what is considered significant or important information.