Embedded Files
Post-Secondary Classroom Activism Case Study
Post-Secondary Classroom Activism Case Study
Ashley A. Baker and Emily Ryalls’s “Technologizing Feminist Pedagogy: Using Blog Activism in the Gender Studies Classroom” discusses the results of a blog activism project that the pair created for an Introduction to Gender Studies course. Baker and Ryalls present the benefits of using online social networking platforms to engage students in activism. They explain that this practice aligns with what bell hooks calls ‘engaged pedagogy,’ because it “fosters critical thinking and provides students with the tools to question inequality and social structures… [it] inspires students to strive for personal and social change that will lead to a more equitable society” (Baker & Ryalls, 2014, p. 24).
Introduction to Gender Studies Course
Introduction to Gender Studies Course
For the feminist blog activist project, students were responsible for completing six blog posts and one reflection paper throughout the term. Baker and Ryalls’s (2014) blog prompts for students were as follows:
Answer the following questions: What did you think feminism meant when you started this class and what does it mean to you now? Would you call yourself a feminist? Why or why not?
Select an item from the provided list of 50 ways to incorporate feminism into your daily life and reflect on the experience of incorporating that list item
Select an item from the provided list of 50 ways to incorporate feminism into your daily life and reflect on the experience of incorporating that list item
Select an item from the provided list of 50 ways to incorporate feminism into your daily life and reflect on the experience of incorporating that list item
Create an original way to integrate feminism into your life that was not on the list, share this experience with your readers, and challenge your readers to also perform the activism
Write about what you’ve learned from this project (p. 27).
Once the blog posts were completed, students shared their work with one another on the class’s Facebook page. The use of technology in this Introduction to Gender Studies course helped to bridge the gap between the classroom and the outside world, allowing students to reach a greater audience and have a greater impact with their activism. Through their feminist studies and the time spent working on their projects, students gained a clearer understanding of how gender affects how people navigate through the world, and it inspired them to share what they had learned with others. Students were equipped with ideas for incorporating feminist activism into their daily lives, and they developed the skills of identifying issues in society and articulating why those issues need to be fixed.
Page updated
Report abuse