Difference in higher education pedagogies: gender, emotion and shame

ABSTRACT

This paper draws attention to gendered inequalities in relation to pedagogic participation, the politics of difference and the concept of ‘shame’. I use the term ‘pedagogic participation’ to illuminate the relationship between formations of difference, policy concerns to improve ‘equity’ and higher education participation in and across contested pedagogical spaces. Engaging feminist critiques and analyses of pedagogical practices and ‘inclusion’, I consider possibilities for creating ‘parity of participation’ in relation to the social justice struggles of redistribution, recognition, representation and embodied subjectivities. How might students and teachers create spaces for the parity of participation across and among these three inter-related social justice domains and formations of difference in ways that acknowledge the lived and embodied politics of emotion and shame? Through exploring this question, I aim to re/imagine difference as a critical resource for opening up ethical, praxis-based pedagogical spaces and relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Femininities
• critical pedagogies
• difference and diversity
• emotion and shame
• higher education

View correction statement:

Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Penny Jane Burke is Global Innovation Chair of Equity and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Higher Education Academy; National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.