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New Zealand Geographer (2008) 64, 228– 233 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2008.00148.x © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 The New Zealand Geographical Society Inc. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Blackwell Publishing Asia Geo-Ed Critical literacy in the geography classroom Geo-Ed Critical literacy and the geography classroom: Including gender and feminist perspectives Lee Thompson 1 and Tony Clay 2 1 Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2 Geography/Tourism, Burnside High School, PO Box 29 677, Christchurch, New Zealand Abstract: Teaching secondary school geography students about different perspectives on the way knowledge is produced can be challenging. The forms of critical thinking that are prompted by interrogating the ways in which knowledge are produced equips students with intellectual tools for independent learning; an attribute which is a key feature of successful learners. This article provides an overview of the ways in which gender/feminist perspectives have been generated over time; how the teaching of these perspectives has been included in one New Zealand school, as well as suggesting useful resources. Key words: Critical literacy, feminist perspectives, gender perspectives. A recent development in teaching geography in schools in New Zealand has focused teachers on the ways that knowledge is produced and what we accept as knowledge. In short, the requirements of the national secondary school curriculum leading to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) expect teachers of geography to investigate with their students what it means to look at the world from different perspectives, in other words, to develop a degree of critical literacy. This drive is part of a wider global move which has begun to investigate the importance of how we deal with diversity and understand citizenship (Ajegbo, Kiwan & Sharma 2007). This, coupled with the well acknowledged importance of developing critical and inde- pendent thinking, makes understanding the ways that knowledge is constructed, and the appreciation of different perspectives, very important for the contemporary learner. A knowledge society is one where people acquire knowledge, but also one where the skills of interpretation, critique, and the ability to think for oneself are developed. An example of the steps involved in developing these skills is detailed in Table 1 1 . Following the 2007 NCEA level 3 geography examination, which included a question on feminist perspectives, the concern generated in the media somewhat predictably assumed that students were being told what to think. What students were in fact asked to do was to consider and write about the ways in which gender (both masculinity and femininity) might play a part in making social spaces. This question requires critical thinking and attempts to encourage students to analyse their own and others’ place in the world. What do we mean by ‘perspectives’? Perspectives are simply different ways of viewing the world. If we are women or men, old or young, white, rich or poor, Maori or of Note about the author: Lee Thompson lectures in the geography department at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research interests range widely over health and cultural geographies. Tony Clay is Head of Geography and Tourism at Burnside High School in Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]

Critical literacy and the geography classroom: Including gender and feminist perspectives

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New Zealand Geographer

(2008)

64

, 228–233 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2008.00148.x

© 2008 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2008 The New Zealand Geographical Society Inc. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Blackwell Publishing Asia

Geo-Ed

Critical literacy in the geography classroom

Geo-Ed

Critical literacy and the geography classroom: Including gender and feminist perspectives

Lee Thompson

1

and Tony Clay

2

1

Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand,

2

Geography/Tourism, Burnside High School, PO Box 29 677, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract:

Teaching secondary school geography students about different perspectives onthe way knowledge is produced can be challenging. The forms of critical thinking that areprompted by interrogating the ways in which knowledge are produced equips students withintellectual tools for independent learning; an attribute which is a key feature of successfullearners. This article provides an overview of the ways in which gender/feminist perspectiveshave been generated over time; how the teaching of these perspectives has been includedin one New Zealand school, as well as suggesting useful resources.

Key words:

Critical literacy, feminist perspectives, gender perspectives.

A recent development in teaching geographyin schools in New Zealand has focused teacherson the ways that knowledge is produced andwhat we accept as knowledge. In short, therequirements of the national secondary schoolcurriculum leading to the National Certificateof Educational Achievement (NCEA) expectteachers of geography to investigate with theirstudents what it means to look at the worldfrom different perspectives, in other words, todevelop a degree of critical literacy.

This drive is part of a wider global movewhich has begun to investigate the importanceof how we deal with diversity and understandcitizenship (Ajegbo, Kiwan & Sharma 2007).This, coupled with the well acknowledgedimportance of developing critical and inde-pendent thinking, makes understanding theways that knowledge is constructed, and theappreciation of different perspectives, veryimportant for the contemporary learner. Aknowledge society is one where people acquireknowledge, but also one where the skills of

interpretation, critique, and the ability to thinkfor oneself are developed. An example of thesteps involved in developing these skills isdetailed in Table 1

1

.Following the 2007 NCEA level 3 geography

examination, which included a question onfeminist perspectives, the concern generatedin the media somewhat predictably assumedthat students were being told what to think.What students were in fact asked to do was toconsider and write about the ways in whichgender (both masculinity and femininity)might play a part in making social spaces. Thisquestion requires critical thinking and attemptsto encourage students to analyse their ownand others’ place in the world.

What do we mean by ‘perspectives’?

Perspectives are simply different ways ofviewing the world. If we are women or men,old or young, white, rich or poor, M

a

ori or of

Note about the author: Lee Thompson lectures in the geography department at the University of Canterbury, NewZealand. Her research interests range widely over health and cultural geographies. Tony Clay is Head of Geographyand Tourism at Burnside High School in Christchurch, New Zealand.

E-mail: [email protected]

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© 2008 The New Zealand Geographical Society

mixed race, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and soon, we have a particular ‘take’ on the world.This is definitely not to say that all whitepeople or all poor people view the world in thesame way, but simply that people do not alllook at the world through the same eyes,although some key differences such as race,religion, class and gender (and scientific training)do often have a strong impact on how we viewthe world.

Gender and feminist perspectives

Gender and feminist perspectives have con-tributed a great deal to the discipline of

geography over the last three decades and tothe development of greater degrees of criticalliteracy in the discipline. Initial contributionswithin these perspectives drew to attentionthe ‘gender of geography’. The discipline ofgeography, it was argued, was masculine andthe implications of this growing awarenesswere investigated and critiqued by feministgeographers. These first critiques were focusedaround the ways in which women were erasedor at least invisible (Rose 1995) and secondly theway that ways of researching and understandingwere gendered.

There was also a growing critique of thecontent of human geography. Those interested

Table 1 Typology of reading perspectives.

Traditional Reading Critical Reading Critical Literacy

Types of questions:

Does the text represent the truth?

What is the context? To whom is the text addressed? What is the intention of the author? What is the position of the author [his/her political agenda]? What is the author trying to say and how is he/she trying to convince/manipulate the reader? What claims are not substantiated? Why has the text been written in this way?

What are the assumptions behind the statements? How does the author understand reality? What is shaping his/her understanding? Who decides what is real, can be known, or needs to be done in this context? In whose name and for whose benefit? What are the implications of these claims? What are the blind spots and contradictions of this perspective?

Is it fact or opinion?Is it biased or neutral?Is it well written/clear?Who is the author and what level of authority/legitimacy does he/she represent?What does the author say?

Focus:

Content, authority and legitimacy of the speaker and the text

Context, intentions, style of communication

Assumptions, knowledge production, power, representation and implications

Aim:

To develop an understanding of the content and/or to establish the truth-value of the text

To develop critical reflection [ability to perceive intentions and reasons]

To develop reflexivity [ability to perceive how assumptions are constructed]

Language:

Is fixed, transparent and gives us access to reality

Is fixed and translates reality Is ideological and constructs reality

Reality:

Exists and is easily accessed through sensory perceptions and objective thinking

Exists and is accessible, but is often translated into false representations

Exists, but is inaccessible [in absolute terms] – we have only partial interpretations constructed in language

Knowledge:

Universal, cumulative, linear, right vs. wrong, fact vs. opinion, neutral vs. biased

False vs. true interpretation of reality Always partial, context dependent [contingent], complex and dynamic

Source: OSDE (undated)

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in gender argued that half of the subjects thatshould be considered in human geography,namely women, had been left out. The assump-tion prevalent across many disciplines at thetime was that the experiences, behaviours andissues important to men (especially whitemiddle class able bodied men) would be thenorm, not just for this group of men, butuniversally. As a result of these critiques, therewas a push to include women and women’sissues specifically in the whole range of humangeographical studies (Massey 1984; WGSG1997).

Most of those working within a feministframework during these early critiques werewomen, but over time many feminist critiqueshave become quite mainstream, with many menutilizing feminist theory with a more recentupsurge of interest in and research aroundcontemporary masculinities. This upsurge ininterest is especially significant given what isargued to be a ‘crisis of masculinity’ (McDowell2003) as well as concerns regarding boys’school performance (MoE 2007).

Feminist theories

How we think about gender in/and geographyhas evolved with shifts in feminist thought.It is important to understand that there area variety of feminist theoretical approaches,some of which are briefly reviewed below.For a fuller analysis of these perspectives, seeTong (1989). Understanding more about thesedifferent perspectives helps to dispel somemyths about feminist thinking.

Liberal feminism

A liberal feminist perspective placed mostemphasis on ideas of equality, especiallyequality in the eyes of the law and universalaccess to the rights of citizenship. Liberalfeminists argued for such things as suffrage,married women’s right to own property, andclaims for equality in the workplace. In manyways liberal feminism has become somewhatinvisible due to the fact that many of thethings that liberal feminists fought for are nowtaken for granted; for example it is now hardto imagine a time and space where women werenot seen as full citizens and thus could not votein elections as was the case in the late 1800s.

Within the liberal feminist perspective, mascu-linity remains the norm to which women adapt.

Radical feminism

Radical feminism came to prominence earlyin the second wave of feminism. It is radical fem-inism that is often assumed to be the feministperspective and it is stereotypes associatedwith radical feminism that have attracted bothinterest and opprobrium. Within this perspective,women are seen to be oppressed as women bymen and the solution suggested is to set up analternative to the patriarchally controlledsystem. It is from this world view that radical,lesbian separatism grew. There is an elementof gender apartheid evident in this perspectivethat, while a negative aspect to many, cannevertheless be important to some people.

Post-structural feminism

Post-structural feminism with its focus on‘difference’ has become important, developingin response to shortcomings in radical andliberal feminist perspectives. Radical feminismonly provided an explanatory framework for aminority of women, while liberal feminismwith its focus on such things as the right topaid work for women was heavily critiqued bywomen of colour. These women argued thatoftentimes it would be desirable for them tohave the right not to be in paid work sincethey were frequently employed in low paidjobs, with long working hours that they neededsomehow to reconcile with the demands offamilies. The emphasis in post-structuralfeminism is on difference and equity, ratherthan a simple ‘equality’. Alongside this per-spective sits a fundamental shift in the waythat knowledge is thought about.

What counts as knowledge and how do we produce it?

Thinking ‘difference’ has worked alongsidethe argument that there is no one ‘grandtheory’ that will finally explain everything. Thisshift has been profoundly disturbing for manypeople and many do not accept the argumentsadvanced. Nevertheless it has become moreand more common to see knowledge productionas a much more modest enterprise and thesocial world as complex, constantly changing,

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and not given over to singular, simple definitionor explanation.

Gender theorists were at the forefront ofcritiques regarding the ways in which knowl-edge is produced. They made some of theearliest arguments suggesting that knowledgeis not out there waiting to be found or revealed,but that we actively participate in producingwhat counts as knowledge. They argued thatthere are multiple ways of knowing and thatthese ways of knowing were never completelya-political, value-free or unbiased, but rather,they reflected the values, beliefs and invest-ments of those who produced the knowledge.All knowledge was argued to be ‘situated’ orpositioned. Our own individual perspectivesinfluence which types of knowledge we privilege.

Such approaches were often assumed to negatescience and scientific research and thinking.But the goal of these critiques was to stimulatereflection about the ways in which scientificknowledge was constructed, rather than tosuggest it was all nonsense. As a result, differentmethods of researching were developed whichwere designed not to replace conventionalscientific research, but rather to broaden thetypes of fields deemed worthy of investigationand to include the experiences of those whohad often been excluded from research, orwho had been ‘researched’ in ways that weredamaging. These concerns have also beenwidely discussed amongst M

a

ori researchers(see for example Smith 1999).

There was an upsurge in use of qualitativemethods, in response to the more ‘distant’methods traditionally employed. Feministresearchers paid careful attention to researchethics, power relations, who maintained theauthority to interpret research data (only theresearcher or the participants as well?), whoowned the research. These reflections havenow all become a core part of research withhuman subjects in geography (see for exampleHay 2005, see McDowell 1992 for a criticalanalysis of feminist research).

Teaching gender/feminist perspectives in the geography

classroom

In secondary schools, geography teachers haveto be participants in a rapidly changing and

increasingly interconnected world. Changingsocietal structures, increasing social andcultural diversity and the marketing of pro-ducts and ideas through multimedia meanthat teachers and students have to ask morequestions about the information that is reachingus in ways that were not invented even tenyears ago. Teachers need to develop in studentsa range of skills that equip them for lifelonglearning in an environment that will changeeven faster in future.

The type of questions contained in Table 1need to be asked in class in order to discoverthe ways information has been influenced bythe psychological, social, cultural and/orpolitical agenda of the information source. Byencouraging students to question viewpointsand ‘accepted knowledge’ in terms of reality,power, interest and multiple meanings, teachersare going to help students identify the waysdifferent perspectives may have previouslybeen subjugated and manipulated by thedominant knowledge hegemony.

The presence of the gender perspective hasbeen formalized in the ‘Explanatory Notes’for Achievement Standards at all levels (seeTable 2). In 2007, when the inclusion of a genderperspective in the NCEA Level 3 Geographyexamination was foreshadowed, a startingpoint for many teachers was probably thearticle by Tallon, Kindon and Lanigan (2007).This document and the NZQA resource entitled‘Statement on Perspectives’ (NZQA 2001)repay regular re-reading. Tallon, Kindon andLanigan (2007) offered a number of learning/teaching activities (and references) includingadvertisements for homes over time, visitingon-line marketing sites, studying public art-works, and the geography of fear and safety.In each case they suggest that questions beasked about who or what is shown/not shown,what assumptions and stereotypes can beinterrogated in order to ‘pay more attention todifferences between and among men andwomen of varying ages, ethnicities, classesand abilities’ (Tallon

et al.

2007: 3). Thissuggested approach, they claimed, offersnew and exciting ways of engaging students inquestioning taken-for-granted assumptions ofthe world.

At Burnside High School we have beenencouraging critical literacy in geography,

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particularly in Level 3 areas like planningand decision-making, where multiple viewpointshave to be considered in terms of ideology,vested interest, and socio-economic and culturalterms. Students have few problems in roleplaying different interest groups and puttingthemselves into the shoes and situations ofothers when they start thinking critically. Forthe last two years, our students have completed,as their research activity AS 90705, a study ofthe ways students of different genders usedifferent parts of the school campus. We haveused the ‘Boys and Girls come out to Play’exemplar from the TKI (Te Kete Ipurangi)website (http://www.tki.org.nz/). Pre-teachingincludes a consideration of the NZQA‘Perspectives’ document and a range of otherresources. Discussions around gendered spacesin homes, in urban areas, in malls and skateparks, for example, introduce the topic andstudents are encouraged to question all theseparations apparent in gendered spaces.The research activity takes students beyondthe empirical (scientific method) approach andallows them to use their knowledge andperceptions of gender perspectives to accountfor patterns of campus use. The more cynicalstudents expect to reinforce the stereotypicalseparations of active males and passive females,but even they find themselves questioningthose stereotypes. They have to find newexplanations for the differences the datasuggested (and swallow some of their male/macho pride when they count more boys thangirls in the library!).

Elsewhere in our teaching we try to copewith the ‘slippery stuff’ of Social Studies.Bronwyn Wood (2007: 42) suggests thatwithout acknowledging multiple perspectivesin the classroom, it is likely that teachers will

end up being ‘more akin to technicians thancreative artists and performers’. She repeatsconcerns that teachers feel that the ‘problemsand risks (of values and social action teaching)are just too great and that it is safer to stick toknowledge and skills and avoid values andsocial action’ (Keown 1998, p. 141, cited inWood 2007: 45).

It is certainly true that teachers need toventure beyond their comfort zones, enter theworld of critical literacy and include moreemphasis on the notions of deconstruction andinterrogation of accepted ideas and approaches.In fact, critical literacy and perspectives werespecifically mentioned in the 2007 NCEAScholarship Geography paper which includedstudent instructions to ‘... discuss and analyse’,‘... critically evaluate’, and ‘... include a con-sideration of perspectives’. The role of theGeography teacher needs to be reformulated.Incorporation of feminist and other perspectivesin geography teaching need not change a lotwithin the ‘house’ of geography. It will involvesome renovation and redecoration by theoccupier, but this will not affect or alter thestructural integrity of the subject. By movingthe walls and creating different spaces, andincorporating the views of different designerswithin these spaces, the redecoration mayresult in a much richer architecture. Certainly,the ‘house’ won’t fall down if feminist andother perspectives are actively included inclassroom teaching.

Suggested extra resources

For a New Zealand-based chapter on genderand place see Longhurst (1999). For visualresources that may be of interest in discuss-ing gender and stereotyping, see http://www.youtube.com, which has a selection of beeradvertising and many other useful clips thatreward a little searching looking at such titles asGender stereotyping in the media, PsychologyProject – gender stereotyping, Sexism – genderroles in the media, women and shopping, Adsand gender – sex, Ads and gender – genderstereotypes. It is suggested teachers view theselected sites before projecting them on aclassroom screen. There are many similar/samenamed sites, and some may be inappropriatefor class room use!

Table 2 Perspectives listed in Geography Achievement Standards, NCEA Levels

1–3, 2008

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Ethnicity (2008)2 Indigenous IndigenousMåori Måori MåoriScientific Scientific ScientificGender Gender Environmental

Post-ColonialGender

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Endnotes

1 For an on-line copy of the table, see: http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/keydocs/osdebooklet.pdfFor other very useful resources in relation to criticalliteracy see: http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/

2 It is interesting to note the use of the term‘ethnicity’ at Level 1 in 2008 while ‘indigenous’ ismaintained at the other levels. It is beyond thescope of this article to explore this point further.

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