Social Foundations of Education: Feminist Perspectives

Melinda Moore Davis

Feminist scholars have contributed significantly during the past forty years to the interdisciplinary development of the social foundations of education through their teaching, writing, performances, and activism. Many philosophers, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists in the social foundations field have worked diligently to counteract the omission of women's thoughts and work from teacher education programs. The lack of emphasis on women's issues and perspectives can be explained in part as reflecting the dominant male hegemony in the culture. Also, although the teaching of children and youth has been overwhelmingly a female profession, professorships in the social foundations of education were held primarily by men until recent years. Most coursework perpetuated study of the history, philosophy, and sociology of education from male perspectives. Feminist writers and teachers seek to disrupt White, male, Protestant, Western European, heterosexual, middle- to upper-middle-class domination of ideas and practices within education. They wish to heal dichotomies, such ...

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