Browsing by Author "Korhonen, Sanni"

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.