By: Laura Drugan
 Feminists Critiques of Philosophy
 Epistemology
 Philosophy of Social Science
 Ethics
 Care and Education
 Educating for a “productive” and “reproductive” life

Mathematics and Science, Public Leadership
 Historically male dominant

Care, Compassion, and Connection
 Historically female dominant
 Barriers that excluded females from an education leading to a
“productive” lifestyle have long vanished, so let’s seize the opportunity

Educators and care givers need to encourage females to embrace math and science
learning

Females can inspire females – below are some compelling videos highlighting females working in math and
science fields


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LWtMqGbjtA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv-ZNyFVat4&feature=relmfu
 Learning associated with Care, Compassion, and Connection does not
end with female domestic responsibilities

School curriculum can be organized around themes of caring (caring for self, caring
for loved ones, caring for strangers, caring for animals and nature, caring for ideas)

http://www.bu.edu/ccsr/files/2011/04/Spring-2007.pdf
 Beliefs and debate surrounding credibility of knowledge
 “Standpoint” epistemology: belief that a certain privilege is acquired
by those who experience oppression
 Women and gender, poor and poverty, blacks and race, etc.
 Some feminist (including black feminist) put stake in knowledge
based on personal experiences
 Educators need to discuss the “credibility” of knowledge
and information with their students
 Help students understand what sources are credible for certain
types of information (for example, the wikipedia debate)
 Through knowledge and passion, help students see credibility in
teachers
 Feminists most important contribution to social
science educational research
 Do not substitute “one right way” for another
 Qualitative research is not more right than quantitative
 Narrative is no more right than paradigmatic
 Rightness of a research method must be judged by both
the purposes of the participants and its effects
 Was there a solid purpose and were the results useful and
acceptable
 This statement should be the filter educators use for all lesson
plans and classroom projects
 Students need to understand the objective and find ways to purposefully
use this new knowledge or information
 The ethic of care dismisses the old distinction between
“is” and “ought” as a pseudo problem
 “I ought to care because…”
 Natural caring: respond spontaneously to another’s plight
 I know what it is liked to be cared for…
 Ethical caring: does have to be summoned
 “I ought but I don’t want to”
 I have to turn to memories of caring
 In a classroom setting, the teacher needs create an
environment filled with natural and ethical caring
 Student may not have the right modeling at home
Moral education from the care perspective has four major components
Modeling
•Educators have to
show what it
means to care in
their own behavior
•Demonstrate
caring in their
relationships with
students
•Caring must be
genuine
Dialogue
•Educators have to
talk about caring
with their students
•Students need
help in
interpreting
behavior of adults
•“engrossment”
•Educators can use
dialogue to
evaluate their
attempts to care
•Conversation
must be two way
Practice
•Students need
practice in caring
and reflect on that
practice
•Community
service and
cooperative work is
a good way to
practice
•Student need to
practice with adult
models
Confirmation
•Affirming and
encouraging the
best in others