Emphasize feminist pedagogy to attract more girls to physics, maths and technology courses

23 February, 2013

Feminist pedagogy (FD) is being advocated for teaching of science subjects to bring about gender equity in learning outcomes of male and female students and attract more females to physics, mathematics and technology courses.

According to pedagogue Marjorie Pryse, FD involves more than the act of teaching and lecturing. In fact, FD creates a scholarship of teaching because it brings “connected learning” into the classroom by an engaged process, facilitated by concrete learning goals in a cooperative, collaborative and participatory manner.

These principles of FD consist of a reformation of the teacher-taught relationships by regarding classroom as a community of learners with teacher as a senior co-learner; empowerment and enabling learning environment; respecting the diversity of personal experience; and challenging traditional lecturing method and competition.

There is persistent challenge of gender equity and its positive psychological foundations in physics courses at higher education level. There is a lesser number of girls in physics courses and the number keeps on decreasing as one goes up from graduation to post-graduation to doctoral studies levels.

An overview of some recent studies by this investigator revealed that both the methods of physics’ instruction and structure of the content of physics courses are masculinised and have weak positive-psychological foundations. A group discussion (N=6, Duration: 1 hour) on an article 'Do women learn differently than men?' was organized and a need was felt by the discussants that positive-psychology-based cooperative learning strategies and group work emphasizing sharing of knowledge along with the structure of knowledge with the social implication of physics concepts can make physics instruction gender inclusive.

Also, a focus group (N=3, Duration: 1 hour) brainstormed for ideas and recommendations for making physics curricula more gender inclusive. The ideas ranging from unisex physics classes without competition, use of collaborative learning, group assignment, and non-linearity of text with more graphics and concept maps, immediate corrective feedback, and self-study skills were made. In all, the recommendations pointed towards a paradigm shift towards feminist pedagogy for physics instruction at higher education level.