ABSTRACT

There are multiple benefits to women’s history, including identifying women’s experiences as historically significant and recognizing the variety of perspectives of historical actors. Engaging students with resources on women’s history requires teachers to be prepared to deal with students’ misconceptions and feelings about gender and feminism. Using historic photographs from the second-wave feminist movement and a theoretical framework of Social Practice Theory, this naturalistic study addresses how 17 high school seniors defined and utilized gender and feminism in the context of the struggle for gender equity. Students were able to identify and describe various systems of power in nuanced and complex ways. The findings illustrate the impact that students’ gender identities and understandings of institutionalized oppression have on their historical analyses and suggest that teachers should consider students’ understandings about power when developing social studies curriculum and instruction that centers on critical gender equity.

摘要

妇女的历史有很多好处，包括将妇女的经历确定为具有历史意义的历史，并认识到历史参与者的各种观点。要让学生获得有关妇女历史的资源，需要教师做好准备，以应对学生对性别和女权主义的误解和感觉。这项自然主义的研究利用第二波女权运动的历史照片和社会实践理论的理论框架，探讨了17名高中毕业生如何在争取性别平等的背景下定义和利用性别和女权主义。学生能够以细微而复杂的方式识别和描述各种权力系统。