Listening to the women's Voices

by Fran Davis and Arlene Steiger

"Look at a classroom; look at the many kinds of women's faces, postures, expressions. Listen to the women's voices" (1). This injunction, written by Adrienne Rich in 1978 as part of her insistence that we "take women students seriously", has become an important theme in our research. We are working to document the impact of feminist pedagogy in traditional classrooms across a wide range of disciplines. We have, as a result, elaborated a set of teaching strategies out of our sense that the classroom is a political arena in which women students are likely to be disadvantaged in a variety of ways.

That men speak more than women in the classroom has implications for the vey nature of women's learning .

Initially, we were most concerned about the unequal distribution of space and attention in the traditional classroom. The phenomenon is well documented. In general in mixed groups, men tend to speak more frequently and are more likely to interrupt a woman (2). Such patterns of interaction are carried into the classroom, where they continue to work upon the lives of young women in spite of the best egalitarian intentions of teachers.

The process by which men come to lay claim to more space in the classroom is undoubtedly complex. For example, several researchers have found that male students tend to intervene in the classroom in ways which draw the attention of the teachers more effectively than do the female students (3). For us, the crucial issue here is talk, and the fact that men seem to do more of it .

We think that speech is a critical step in the process by which students come to possess material. Certainly Stella Baruk, in her attempts to understand her students' difficulties in mathematics, reminds us of the indispensable role of talk at every turning. The language of everyday speech is literally the tool she uses to burrow through mathematical error toward understanding (4). That men speak more than women in the classroom has implications for the quality and perhaps even the very nature of women's learning.

À l'ecoute des femmes

par Fran Davis et Arlene Steiger

Lorsque nous enjoignons les enseignants et enseignantes de suivre le conseil d'Adrienne Rich, soit celui «d'être à 1'écoute des femmes», nous leur demandons de lutter contre des forces toute puissantes qui se manifestent dans les salles de classe. Dans la mesure où la parole est un des éléments clés permettant aux élèves d'acquérir des connaissances et dans la mesure où les garçons parlent davantage que les filles pendant les cours la qualité, voire la nature-même de l' apprentissage des femmes sont des le départ contrecarrés.

Nos travaux dans le cadre de l' élaboration de méthodes pédagogiques féministes pouvant s'appliquer à diverses disciplines nous ont amenés à chercher d'autres moyens pour que les élèves et le personnel enseignant, mais aussi les élèves entre elles et eux arrivent à mieux communiquer.

Nous savons que la pédagogie que nous préconisons remet en question ce qui a été accepté jusqu'à présent comme le paradigme scientifique. Les liens existant entre l'affectif et rationnel, entre la détentrice de connaissances et le connu, semblent caractériser les situations d'apprentissage dans lesquelles les femmes trouvent un réconfort. Les disciplines scientifiques mettent l'accent sur la division, la virtuosité et l'objectivité.

En interviewant des étudiantes dans le cadre de nos recherches sur la pédagogie féministe des sciences physiques, on a un de l'attitude des étudiantes du cycle supérieur à l'égard de l'étude de la physique.


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