Workshop 2 - Gender, Teaching And The Everyday (Presented by the Teaching and the Women, Gender And Politics Sections)

W205 - Workshop 2 - Teaching, Gender and the Everyday 2

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Location: SJA-715 | Refreshments! Rafraîchissements!

Chair/Président/Présidente : Elizabeth McCallion (University of Toronto)

Refreshments will be served @ 3:15pm, join us!
Des rafraîchissements seront servis @ 15h15, rejoignez-nous !

An affective and effective model of teaching: reflections on creating a feminist space of care: Bailey Gerrits (St. Francis Xavier University), Nadia Verrelli (Laurentian University), Lori Chambers (Lakehead University)
Abstract: Emotional labour is central to effective teaching and is highly gendered and racialized. Yet, support for the affective dimension of academic teaching is inadequate. It often falls on the individual instructor to find support and to manage the emotional labour. Teaching courses on challenging topics can add additional emotional labour. In fall 2024, we taught a similar syllabus on gender-based violence across three universities in three different disciplines. A course about gender-based violence has the potential to contribute to social change, just as it creates additional emotional labour. Several sticky issues came up in our courses, from challenging student disclosures to transphobic student discussions to language barriers to mismatched student expectations with the possibilities for transformative change in neoliberal university spaces. This paper will reflect on a potential feminist model that counters the emotional isolation often associated with teaching. We met weekly to reflect on our courses, discuss emerging issues, and provide support. This model of feminist care for each other as teachers-as-humans created a space to affectively reflect on our courses and develop affective and effective teaching strategies. It was affective and effective because of the support through intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional collaboration, sharing pedagogical resources, and, to borrow from Sara Ahmed, assembling shelters as a “shared feminist project” (2017, 236). We reflect on our experience as it might translate to a more sustained space of feminist care.

Teaching Politics in the 21st Century: Impacts on Faculty Wellbeing and Mental Health: Inna Viriasova (Acadia University)
Abstract: This paper addresses the question of political science faculty’s wellbeing and mental health when continuously engaging in teaching of difficult subjects related to crises, wars, (post)colonialism, racism and other forms of discrimination, economic and social inequalities, ecological crises, climate change, etc. While student mental health is becoming prioritized by university administrations and there is some research that’s being produced to address this subject, faculty mental health needs continue to be overlooked. This project contributes to the conversation on faculty wellbeing and mental health and is based on interviews with political science (and closely related disciplines) faculty across Canada.

Bringing Abortion Access into the Political Science Classroom through a Comparative Case Study Approach: Rachel k. Brickner (Acadia University)
Abstract: Feminist scholars highlight the importance of mainstreaming gender in political science education so that what we are teaching students about women, gender, and feminism reflects the scholarship in these areas (Atchison 2017; Casesse, Bros, and Duncan 2012). In my experience teaching courses in the Politics and Women’s and Gender Studies programs at Acadia University, enrollment in my first- and second- year classes is relatively gender balanced, whereas upper-year classes are disproportionately comprised of women. As such, it is imperative to introduce gender content in those early year courses. Notably, research shows that course content on women and gender can engage female students (Cassese et al. 2019) but that men may resist it (Higgenbotham, 1996). Given these personal and scholarly contexts, I developed an approach to introduce “everyday” gendered experiences into my second-year Comparative Politics that could appeal to all students, regardless of gender. Specifically, in 2021 I organized the class around a comparative question: why has abortion become more accessible in the Republic of Ireland, whereas in the United States the right to legal abortion established by Roe v. Wade is under threat? I revised and repeated the comparative case study in 2020, after Roe v. Wade had been overturned. The students’ response surpassed expectations. Structuring the class through a comparative case study method allowed me to introduce foundational disciplinary content and incorporate a feminist lens, while inviting them to think about abortion access as an issue that they all should know and care about.