“If we want to change, we must be willing to teach”1: Exploring the potential of intersectional feminist pedagogy to change oppressive behaviours and ease a conflict in a Catalan secondary school. Nathalie Prévot Supervisor: Professor Emerita Nina Lykke Master’s programme in Gender Studies – Intersectionality and Change Master’s Thesis 30 ECTS Credits ISRN: LIU-TEMA G/GSIC2-A—18/014-SE 1 bell hooks, 2003, p.76 1 Abstract Whereas transformative pedagogy is a well researched subject, intersectional feminist pedagogy and specifically Transversal dialogue has not been used to ease conflict in Catalonia. This research examines the potential for intersectional feminist pedagogy to change oppressive behaviours in both students and teachers in a classroom conflict in a Catalan secondary school. Using ethnography, the thesis describes and analyses a five month research process, which involved participant observation, participatory action research and anti-oppressive sessions using Transversal dialogue. By concluding that changes in oppressive behaviours in both teacher and students can be empowering, the research challenges the idea put forward by Kevin Kumashiro about changes occurring through crisis. Rather, I argue that Edyta Just’s adaptation of Deleuzian philosophy to pedagogy offers a more flexible framework to understand these changes. This thesis aims to contribute to intersectional feminist pedagogy by first demonstrating that changes in oppressive behaviours can occur in empowering ways and second that theories of how to bring about those changes need to be flexible. Keywords Intersectional feminist pedagogy, Transversal dialogue, conflict resolution, changes in oppressive behaviours, affects, assemblages, becomings, Deleuzian pedagogy. 2 Acknowledgments: First, I want to thank the person who is called Emma in this thesis, without you, I could not have explored intersectional feminist pedagogy the way we did. I am aware that you sometimes took risks for this research and wanted to thank you for that too. Thanks to all the students who participated in our sessions. I really enjoyed our time together. Thanks to the person who is called Monica, for opening the door to IES Santa Eugenia to me. I also want to thank some of my teachers in the Master in Gender Studies- Intersectionality and change at Linköping University. First, I want to thank Redi Koobak for teaching us how to be creative with writing academic texts and Edyta Just for demonstrating that a mental dance with theories is possible. My deepest thanks to Nina Lykke for making me understand what feminist pedagogy is about and for supervising my thesis. Your generosity, kindness and insightful remarks have been appreciated and will always be. Thanks to Graham for his patience and support. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 7 Terminology: why Intersectional Feminist Pedagogy? 9 2: BACKGROUND: SITUATING THE RESEARCH ................................ 10 Why IES Santa Eugenia? 10 Situating the time of the research 10 Situating the place of the research 11 Situating the participants in the research 12 Situating the conflict 14 3. PREVIOUS RESEARCH............................................................................. 16 Intersectionality in Spain 16 Transversal Dialogue in Spain. 18 4. AIMS OF MY RESEARCH......................................................................... 20 Thesis outline 21 5. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS........................................................... 23 Intersectionality 23 Pedagogies critical of oppression 24 Feminist Engaged Pedagogy 25 Intersectional Gender Pedagogy and Transversal dialogue 26 Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy 26 Norm critical pedagogy 28 EMBODIED LOCATIONS 30 The classroom, an assemblage? 30 Affective bodies 31 6. METHODS, METHODOLOGY, ONTOLOGY AND ETHICS ............ 32 Epistemology, methodology and ontology 32 Ethnography and feminist qualitative educational research 34 Methods for collecting the material 34 Materials 37 Methods for analysing the material 37 Ethics 38 4 7. ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIAL.............................................................. 41 FEMINIST TEACHING METHODS IN THE MAKING 41 My internship: analysing the situation 41 Teaching anti oppressive sessions 43 Preparing the sessions 44 The first session ‘Rooting’ 45 Assessing the first session, 46 The second session ‘Intersectionality’; The day of the second session 47 Assessing the second session ; The third session ‘Shifting’ 49 The day of the third session 50 Assessing the third session 51 The fourth Session; The day of the fourth session 52 Assessing the fourth session ; Emma’s Fifth session 53 INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST PEDAGOGY AND CHANGE 55 Changes in the students 55 Tendencies in the answers of the questionnaires 56 Denying learning new ideas 58 Accepting learning new ideas 59 Changes and Emma. 61 Assemblage one: the conflict 61 Assemblage two: changes after observations and advices 63 Assemblage three: changes after the sessions 64 Assemblage four: the fifth session 66 THE RESEARCHER’S SELF REFLEXIVITY 70 My contribution to change 70 Changes in me 71 THEORY OF CHANGE 73 Crisis versus Empowerment 73 INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST PEDAGOGY: POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE 76 8. CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………… 77 My findings 77 My contribution to knowledge 79 Limitations of the research 79 Moving forward, future research 80 References.................................................................................................... 81 5 APPENDICES 90 Appendix 1 Field notes 90 Appendix 2 First interview with Emma 91 Appendix 3 First session plan 94 Appendix 4 First session worksheet 95 Appendix 5 Second lesson plan 97 Appendix 6 Second session worksheet 98 Appendix 7 Third lesson plan 99 Appendix 8 Third session worksheet 100 Appendix 9 Fourth lesson plan 101 Appendix 10 Fourth session worksheet 108 Appendix 11 Second interview with Emma 110 Appendix 12 Third interview with Emma 112 Appendix 13 Diary 118 Appendix 14 Participants’ answers to the questionnaire 118 6 1. INTRODUCTION “There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives.” (Audre Lorde 1984/2012, p. 132). It started last year when an article in the Spanish press announced that thirty four women had already been killed by their heterosexual partners since the beginning of the year. We were in April. The article spoke about solutions to this type of violence and suggested that teachers should educate children towards a non-sexist society. Despite this simplistic solution to a deep rooted structural problem, I believe in education and was interested in the idea. Nonetheless, I thought that putting the responsibility of eradicating patriarchy solely on teachers felt rather unrealistic at best, and gratuitous at worst. It was not my first disidentification (Lykke 2014) with this kind of ‘miraculous’ solution, which was offered without any explanation of the ways it could materially be implemented. My doubts in teachers’ miraculous powers also came from my own experience as a language teacher. Earlier that year, I had taught a class where most of my students were secondary school teachers. During the class, they made some racist comments and I did not know how to react. Me! A fifty-year-old, life-long anti-racist, pathetic! My ego collapsed. That experience made me realise that it was not enough to be against racism or sexism, that teachers needed some pedagogical tools to be able to successfully address these kinds of issues in their classrooms. Besides, I did not know how I could monitor my own unintended oppressive behaviours. Hadn’t I constructed myself as an open European who was against prejudices? After reading about how whiteness is invisible to, and reproduced by white people, I understood that I was not beyond reproach (Lewis, 2004, p.634). Hadn’t I asked benevolently where some people ‘really’ came from? Pointing to the fact that they did not belong here in privileged Europe was my way of showing any immigrant that I was open to immigration. I did not know that I was reproducing both my privileges and a micro-aggression. I am now aware that not only students’ but also teachers’ oppressive behaviours have to be addressed if changes in behaviour and mindsets are to occur. Unfortunately, in Spain, like in many European countries, there is no training offered by universities to teacher candidates to address their own or their students’ oppressive behaviours (GraciaTrujillo, 2015). 7 I thought that something had to be done. I knew that my willingness to change the status quo also came from the fact that I am both a teacher and a feminist activist. I thought that some help in the form of training had to be given to teachers in order to address both their own prejudices and those of their students. However, the idea felt daunting, and before I could consider proposing such courses, I needed to know more about Spanish/Catalan teachers’ (including myself) and students’ ways of reproducing oppression in schools. I also felt that I needed to acquire some experience of teaching in these types of schools. I do not work in the state system but have my own small community school in my village where I am the only teacher - not a typical setting. I decided to do my internship in a state school. I wanted to understand how and by whom oppression was reproduced. Unsure of my ability to help teachers and students, I started my internship in IES Santa Eugenia, a state secondary school in a