This paper examines the transformative role of critical feminist pedagogy as it applies to global experiential learning. I argue that a feminist approach to global education challenges racialized, neoliberal, and colonizing dimensions of higher education. Global experiential learning provides the basis for an interactive or relational form of critical feminist pedagogy within cross-cultural and transnational communities. The methodology for this research is grounded in decolonizing and feminist pedagogies that address multiple levels of engagement within the education process and among students, faculty, and communities. This discussion demonstrates how critical feminist pedagogy effectively addresses societal issues concerning power, privilege, and knowledge production that are evident in the context of rising populism and nativism in the U.S. The analysis in this paper includes a case study of a global experiential learning program in which university students worked with community-based organizations in rural Tanzania. Their pre-departure orientation, assignments, fieldbased learning, and overall experiences are examined in light of this pedagogical approach. In sum, this pedagogical analysis demonstrates how transnational and feminist practices provide effective ways to construct decolonizing engagement and community-based learning in global education.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has significantly affected the way people maintain relationships despite spatial and other social and economic barriers. In the case of college students and their parents, ICT is a means of maintaining this parent-child relationship when students travel far from home to attend school. However, little research has examined college students’ use of various types of technology for communicating with their parents and how it may affect their relationship with their parents. This chapter analyzes the socio-spatial aspects of how college students use a variety of communication channels (cell phones, text messaging, email, and social networking sites) to connect with their parents using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Specifically, the study addresses: 1) the impact of geographical distance between a college student and their parent on their use of communication technology and the qualities of their relationship, 2) how the gender of both the students and their parents influences the amount and type of communication technology students use with their parents, and 3) whether or not students’ social presence mediates the association between using particular technologies to communicate with their parents and their relationship with their parents. Overall, this chapter contributes to our understanding of the social and spatial aspects of communication technologies within the parent-child relationship and has important implications for universities and families with students transitioning to college.

The purpose of this study was to determine the socio-ecological influences on dry grain pulse consumption (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas) among low-socioeconomic women in Iowa. Seven focus groups were conducted, with 36 women who qualified for income-based federal assistance. Data were collected from October 2017 to January 2018. Participants completed a survey that gathered individual demographics, assessed perceptions of dry grain pulses, and level of food security. Fifty-eight percent of the women were non-Hispanic white, and 39% were African American, all with an average age of 34.7 years. Thirty-three percent of the women consumed pulses less than once per week. Over 80% agreed that beans were healthful and satiating. Some health benefits of beans were unknown by more than 33% of the population, e.g., lower cancer risk, lower LDL, maintain blood glucose. Only 30% of the women were food secure. Focus group audio recordings were transcribed and analyzed by two researchers, using the grounded theory approach. At the policy level, participants knew pulses were included in USA federal nutrition assistance programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Pulses were widely available in grocery stores in communities. Interpersonally, women felt that male partners preferred meats, and children needed animal-source proteins. Individually, women perceived uncooked dry pulses were challenging to prepare. Conclusively, more detailed instruction on pulse preparation, different pulse varieties, and offering canned pulses through WIC may increase consumption

This chapter explores the multiple and contested meanings of ‘the economy’ from a feminist geographic perspective. Research in this field has challenged conventional, often masculinist, approaches to studying the economy by instead examining it as a set of processes that are interconnected with social, political and cultural practices. Our discussion engages with the theoretical foundations of, and empirical work in, feminist geography regarding gender and the economy from multiple and cross-scalar perspectives. It includes scholarship that highlights the relationships among social identities, such as race, class, gender and sexuality, that produce and are constitutive of geographically and temporally diverse and alternative economies. As highlighted below, these identities are evident in global, community-based and individual economic strategies, such as livelihoods of migrant domestic workers in the Middle East, fair-trade farming among Honduran coffee growers and digital media start-ups in San Francisco.

This article examines intercultural aspects of global service-learning (GSL) focused on gender and sustainable development in rural Tanzania. The discussion draws from critical development and postcolonial feminist approaches to examine how GSL addresses globalization, social histories, and political economies of development. The empirical analysis is based on a program that is designed to develop global awareness, intercultural competence, and critical thinking among students and communities. The relationships, discourses, and actions of the participants are examined through written assignments, a focus group discussion, and observations of activities and the community. The findings of this study contribute to broader debates concerning experiential learning that address students’ and other participants’ global awareness and intercultural competency. This program also encourages the formation of responsible and ethical partnerships among institutions and communities where GSL is taking place. In sum, we argue that critical approaches to global service-learning ultimately advance inclusive and transformational pedagogies and development.