Gender-sensitive observations in public spaces as a teaching tool

Public spaces can be seen as arenas where gendered social roles, relations and identities are (re)produced, represented and contested. Because of their (assumed) public character - crowded, open, accessible and visible - these spaces are extremely useful as «observatories» for teaching and learning geography. This article presents and discusses 17 examples of assignments of eleven different universities in Europe, the United States and Israel in which students are encouraged to observe public spaces in order to understand the gendered use of space, interactions in space and the physical and symbolic design of public spaces, and to reflect on their observations from a gender perspective. Two different teaching styles are distinguished: semi-formal (detailed, protocolized and object-oriented) and informal (open, relational and subject-oriented). These differences in teaching styles are argued to reflect differences in academic cultures between countries and between disciplinary paradigms. Keywords: fieldwork, teaching styles, gender, public spaces, observations

Gender-sensitive observations in public spaces as a teaching tool

Public spaces can be seen as arenas where gendered social roles, relations and identities are (re)produced, represented and contested. Because of their (assumed) public character - crowded, open, accessible and visible - these spaces are extremely useful as «observatories» for teaching and learning geography. This article presents and discusses 17 examples of assignments of eleven different universities in Europe, the United States and Israel in which students are encouraged to observe public spaces in order to understand the gendered use of space, interactions in space and the physical and symbolic design of public spaces, and to reflect on their observations from a gender perspective. Two different teaching styles are distinguished: semi-formal (detailed, protocolized and object-oriented) and informal (open, relational and subject-oriented). These differences in teaching styles are argued to reflect differences in academic cultures between countries and between disciplinary paradigms. Keywords: fieldwork, teaching styles, gender, public spaces, observations

Teaching gender and geography: the case of the Netherlands

Feminist geography teaching in universities in the Netherlands originated 30 years ago in an academic context that counteracted this new development for ideological reasons. Nowadays, the neoliberal conditions of the market have replaced the conservative ideology that prevailed 30 years ago. Feminist geography is supported as far as it returns money and is therefore dependent on the number of students' enrolments. Feminist geographers have two different strategies in order to deal with this neoliberal context: a strategy of separation (i.e. teaching separate gender courses) and a strategy of integration (i.e. integrating gender issues and feminist pedagogic practices into the core courses). This report on the history of gender teaching in geography departments in the Netherlands concludes that feminist geography became successful as a result of flexible balancing of the two strategies