ERIC Number: EJ1192395
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Nov
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1746-1979
EISSN: N/A
Challenging the Divide? Confronting a Dialogue across Political Margins in a Feminist Classroom
Hager, Tamar
Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, v13 n3 p242-255 Nov 2018
My article narrates and theorizes one educational moment of speaking 'across' the social and political margins in a peripheral college on the northern border of Israel. I recognize the academic space as what historian Louise Pratt titled a 'contact zone' where peoples geographically and historically separated meet within radically asymmetrical relations of power. In the Israeli academia, secular Westernized Jewish students and teachers from hegemonic groups interact with students from political and social minorities. Despite continued estrangement and mutual hostility, these encounters at times lead to unexpected moments of multicultural alliances. Feminist critical pedagogies serve to identify and create occasions for such interactions that are missing from most academic locations. However, as I demonstrate in this article, these moments which create potential unforeseen resistance to the existing power structure can easily be overlooked. The article focuses on a moment of pedagogical failure to identify an attempt by two female students to cross national affiliations and overcome mutual hostilities, expressing unforeseen solidarity with each other. Reflecting on the political and social reasons for my failure, I end the article by imagining an attempt at amending the pedagogical damage, giving the two students another chance to express their solidarity.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Higher Education, College Students, Females, Feminism, Power Structure, Social Influences, Political Influences, Social Justice, Peer Relationship, Interpersonal Relationship, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Fear, Religious Cultural Groups, Social Bias, College Environment
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Israel; Palestine
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A