Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson: Gender studies and feminism in education

Points used in panel discussions at a Conference on Womens's Studies/Gender Studies, University of Iceland, 4–5 October 2002. The aim was to respond to Rosi Braidotti, and only some of these points were indeed used in the talk. She talked about globalization

To say something meaningful about gender and feminism in education in about 700 words—well, I must use that space very wisely. Especially if you are afterwards to know more about the "state-of-the-art" of gender studies in education in Iceland, which is the topic I think I was asked to address.

Is it wise to begin with a personal story? A personal story of a farm boy from the rural part of Iceland who was seduced by feminist poststructuralism in a USA university? – In feminism and in education alike, story-telling has become ever more important as a research methodology.

My story is that of a man who got involved in gender studies and research, using a poststructural profeminist approach. In fact, I am not sure at all when I got interested in gender equality. I guess it used to be a part of radical politics in the 1970s. But I remember that by the time the feminist movement in Iceland began to participate in municipal and national elections as a political party, I supported it by my vote when I first had the chance to do so in the parliament elections in 1983. Therefore I was well prepared when I did my Ph.D. studies in the progressive city of Madison, Wisconsin between 1987 and 1991. Then I soon discovered that feminism was the radical politics in the USA, at least in the academia. By that, I mean that compared to Europe were socialist and communist movements where active within the universities, influencing many disciplines such as history—my first academic discipline—as well as the social sciences, feminism was the movement in the USA that influenced radical analysis in many disciplines, including education. In fact, poststructuralist feminism fought as an underdog with the socalled critical pedagogy, a strand of thought derived from Paolo Freire's influences.

It was in that atmosphere that I was lucky enough to participate in an experimental class with feminist professor Elizabeth Ellsworth who used poststructuralist literature to analyze strategies capable of intervening into campus politics of race and gender. The class is known as Coalition 607, and the chief class project was moved out to the streets as overhead projection of images and texts about race relations on campus and a street theater (Ellsworth 1989, Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson 1994). This really was the link for me between feminism, poststructuralism and radical politics, a link about how to disturb business-as-usual, allowing me to ask critical questions not only of what I am opposed but also of viewpoints I agree. "Profeminism" is a term I adopted much later to describe my emotional and political investments in gender studies and feminism.

I have not told you very much about what should have been the subject: state-of-the-art of gender studies in education. – I am not sure that there is any state-of-the-art of gender studies in education in Iceland. Yet quite a few studies on gender differences have been performed, many of them enlightened by strong gender equality-in-education clauses of both the school and gender equity legislations. Furthermore, many interesting gender equity education programs have been installed or at least experimented with.

But on the other hand, not all that many of these studies are enlightened by feminism, and teachers do not talk much about equality or gender unless they are asked. Schools tend to appear as gender-free institutions, and teachers either stress that they do not take gender much into account, or gender is simply absent from their discourse (Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhanneson 2002). I am actually tempted to say that the international and somewhat misplaced concern about boys in school (e.g. Hafsteinn Karlsson 1995)—sometimes called the boys' debate—has risen higher than the concern for using schools to equalize matters between men and women, between different cultural groups, to combat homophobia, etc. There even was a conference in 1997 cosponsored by the ministry of education about Boys in School (Strákar í skóla 1998). And in Iceland University of Education there was, and perhaps still is, a specific course for men-only.

I am not sure if I should say that the boys' debate in Iceland is a part of Icelandic gender studies or if it signifies a patriarchal backlash against gender studies and feminism in education. I think it is both, but there definitely is a stance critical of "women's culture" in the boys' debate that worries me. If I continue my personal story, then I have found that the term profeminism has proved to be useful in fighting against the backlash.

Of course this does not mean that there is no feminism in Icelandic education research. But I contend that it is too little of it.

If any group is in the educational focus today, that group is the children with disabilities, preferably diagnosable learning difficulties. It is so because their specific needs are individually diagnosed, and they are often treated as medical cases rather than normal children.

A focus on inclusion of all children is, of course, extremely timely for a rich nation like ours. But we need to do much more in terms of equality: for girls and for boys, for children of different national and cultural, and rural and suburban origins, etc.

Therefore, schools and education research, just as any other field, needs feminism as a research methodology, especially such critical and political versions as the poststructural feminism is. We need its tools to be able to talk about subjectivities of these individuals in focus, be they with dyslexia, or be the boys, or be they girls, or be they school administrators (Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir 2001). We need the poststructuralist tools to talk about the historically and socially constructed legitimating principles that allow certain things to be said and not other things.

Additional points I offered in the panel discussions were about the inevitibility of global political trends, such as marketization of education, that are presented as inevitable steps towards progress, see, for example, Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson o.fl. (2002).

Ellsworth, Elizabeth. 1989. "Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy". Harvard Educational Review 59:297–324.

Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir. 2001. „Orðræður um árangur, skilvirkni og kyngervi við stjórnun menntastofnana". Uppeldi og menntun 10:9–43.

Hafsteinn Karlsson. 1995. "Er karlmennska að hverfa úr skólunum?" [Is masculinity disappearing from the schools?]. Ný menntamál 13,3:20–22.

Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson. 1994. "Farm Boy from the Edge of the Arctic and the Seduction of Feminist Pedagogy in American Academia". Gender and Education 6:293–306.

Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson, Guðrún Geirsdóttir og Gunnar E. Finnbogason. 2002. „Modern educational sagas: Legitimation of ideas and practices in Icelandic education". Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 46(3):265–282.

Strákar í skóla. Málþing á vegum Karlanefndar Jafnréttisráðs og menntamálaráðuneytisins 27. nóvember 1997. [Boys in school. Conference sponsored by the Men's Committee of the Gender Equality Council and the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.] 1998. Reykjavík, menntamálaráðuneytið og Skrifstofa jafnréttismála.

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