Feminist Pedagogy in the Elementary Classroom: An Agenda for Practice

by Lee Woodham Digiovanni and Delores D. Liston

Because elementary education is predominantly made up of women, it is interesting that not much research in the field has been conducted with an inherently feminist perspective. Lisa Goldstein notes that developmental psychology has been the theoretical foundation for early childhood education—an irony, especially considering the pervasiveness of masculinist discourse within that field (Gilligan 5–7). Goldstein remarks as well that "feminist theory could provide a viable foundation for a new vision of early childhood education. Looking to feminist scholarship as a source of theoretical authority would give women a voice in a field they dominate in silence" (62).