Transformation from Within: Practicing Global Education Through Critical Feminist Pedagogy

Abstract

<p>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.</p>