Feminist pedagogy and feminist epistemology: an overview

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Abstract
This article offers an overview of the field of feminist education, epistemology and pedagogy. It examines the variety of streams of feminist thought in these areas including socialist, radical, cultural, liberal and postmodern feminisms. In doing so, it engages with some of the most influential writings in the field from the last 12 years and looks at the relationship between feminist education, feminism as a whole, and poststructuralist social theory and postmodernism. The article goes on to discuss epistemology and Foucauldian notions of knowledge and power hierarchies and asks whether feminism accepts notions of ontology in relation to women. In the final section, feminist pedagogy is discussed in relation to other streams of critical or radical pedagogy; is Women's Studies in universities the most productive place to devote feminist energy to? Can Women's Studies be considered part of radical education when it necessarily operates within an institution which arguably operates to ‘domesticate’ women and valorizes traditional, or patriarchal, epistemology? It concludes by exploring an educational environment, or methodology, which has the potential to be more productive for both students and educators interested in the liberatory possibilities of education.

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