ERIC Number: EJ739493
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Aug
Pages: 14
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0307-5079
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Breastfeeding Incident: Teaching and Learning through Transgression
Davidson, Deborah; Langan, Debra
Studies in Higher Education, v31 n4 p439-452 Aug 2006
The authors describe what happened when feminist teaching came head to breast with mothering. The authors' attempt to impact student responses to feminist theorizing in a third-year social psychology class met with transgressions when a colleague, who had been invited as a guest-lecturer to speak about social structure and violence against women, brought her three-year-old and five-month-old sons with her. During her presentation, when her youngest child started to fuss she breastfed him while she lectured. What followed in later class discussions informed the students about their own contradictory investments in dominant discourses, and informed the authors that a breastfeeding feminist university teacher represents transgressions in the academy. The authors discovered through a reflective and layered analysis of the incident that the breastfeeding feminist university teacher is subjected, not merely to a "chilly climate" or an intellectualized "symbolic violence," but, tersely--to violence--"because" she is a woman who is also an academic. (Contains 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Social Structure, Social Psychology, Feminism, Student Reaction, College Faculty, Discussion (Teaching Technique), Educational Malpractice, Infants, Nutrition
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A