Teaching feminist geographies in the Netherlands. Learning from student-led fieldtrips
Abstract
In this paper, the authors reflect on the use of student-led fieldtrips as an example of feminist pedagogy in a feminist geography course, a joint course by the universities of Amsterdam and Groningen in The Netherlands. The paper is a co-production of three lecturers and one student of this course and therefore includes teachers’ as well as students’ views. The authors conclude that student-led fieldtrips are a successful means of bringing in an explicit feminist pedagogy in teaching gender geography. Students were able to help shape the course using their own everyday experiences and interests and were able to contextualize their experiences in relation to theory explored in the classroom. This result is particularly important within the context of geography teaching in Dutch universities in which an empirical and policy oriented focus and a masculine model of teaching and learning dominates.
Keywords
student-led field trips, feminist pedagogy, gender geography, universities in The NetherlandsReferences
AGNEW, J. and MAMADOUH, V. (eds.) (2008). Politics. Critical essays in human geography. Aldershot: Ashgate.
AGNEW, J.; MITCHELL, K. and TOAL, G. (eds.) (2003). A companion to political geography. Oxford: Blackwell.
ANDERSON, K.; DOMOSH, M.; PILE, S. and THRIFT, N. (eds.) (2003). Handbook of cultural geography. London: Sage.
BLUNT, A.; GRUFFULD, P.; MAY, J.; OGBORN, M. and PINDER, D. (eds.) (2003). Cultural geography in practice. London: Arnold.
BURUMA, I. (2006). Murder in Amsterdam; The death of Theo van Gogh and the limits of tolerance. New York: Penguin Press.
COATE BIGNELL, K. (1996). «Building feminist praxis out of feminist pedagogy: the importance of students’ perspectives». Women’s Studies International Forum, 19(3), 315-325.
Documents d’Anàlisi Geogràfica (1995), 26. Special issue on Gender Geography.
Documents d’Anàlisi Geogràfica (1999), 35. Special issue on Gender Geography.
DROOGLEEVER FORTUIJN, J. (2002). «Internationalising learning and teaching: a European experience». Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 26 (3), 263-273.
DROOGLEEVER FORTUIJN, J. (2004). «Gender representation and participation in Dutch human geography departments». Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 28 (1), p. 133-141.
DUNCAN, J.S.; JOHNSON, N.C. and SCHEIN, R.H. (eds.) (2003). A companion to cultural geography. Oxford: Blackwell.
FLINT, C. and TAYLOR, P. J. (2006). Political Geography, World-economy, nation-state and locality. Fifth edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall (Pearson).
GARCIA RAMON, M.D. and MONK, J. (1997). «Infrequent flying: international dialogue in geography in higher education». Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 21, 141-145.
HOVEN, B. van (2009). «“Can you write a memo on why we have to do gender, please?”: An experiential account of teaching gender geography in the Netherlands. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 33 (3), 315-325.
JOHNSON, N.C. (ed.) (2008). Culture and society. Critical essays in human geography. Aldershot: Ashgate.
LAMBERT, C. and PARKER, A. (2006). «Imagination, hope and the positive face of feminism: pro/feminist pedagogy in “post” feminist times?». Studies in Higher Education, 31 (4), 469-482.
LASKEY AERNI, A.; BARTLETT, R.L.; LEWIS, M.; MCGOLDRICK, K. and SHACKELFORD, J. (1999). «Toward a feminist pedagogy in economics». Feminist Economist, 5 (1), 29-44.
MARCHBANK, J.; LETHERBY, G.; LANDER, K.; WALKER, A. and WILD, A. (2003). «Empowering and enabling or patronizing and pressuring? Opening dialogues between staff and students». Gender and Education, 15 (1), 75-90.
MITCHELL, D. (2000). Cultural geography; A critical introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
MONK, J. and HANSON, S. (1982). «On not excluding half of the human in human geography». Professional Geographer, 34, 11-23.
MUSTERD, S. and DE PATER, B. (2003). «Eclectic and pragmatic: the colours of Dutch social and cultural geography». Social & Cultural Geography, 4 (4), 549-563.
PARKER, M. and JARY, D. (1995). «The McUniversity: organization, management and academic subjectivity». Organization, 2 (2), 319-338.
PAULLE, B. (2005). Anxiety and intimidation in the Bronx and the Bijlmer: An ethnographic comparison of two schools. Amsterdam: Dutch University Press.
PEAKE, L. (1989). «The challenge of feminist geography». Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 13, 85-121.
WEBBER, M. (2006). «Transgressive pedagogies? Exploring the difficult realities of enacting feminist pegagogies in undergraduate classrooms in a Canadian university». Studies in Higher Education, 31 (4), 453-467.
Published
How to Cite
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2010 Bettina van Hoven, Wike Been, Joos Droogleever Fortuijn, Virginie Mamadouh
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
