The feminist imagination and educational research

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of second-wave feminism on educational research with a focus on developments in the USA. It expands on the themes raised in the other articles in this issue of Discourse by considering the political nature of feminist educational research questions beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the contemporary world. The guiding theme of the article is to consider the meaning of the second-wave claim that the personal is political in its manifestations in the women's movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, and its application to educational research as feminist concerns were translated into the academy. It then considers the ways that feminist poststructural research both continues the political concerns of second-wave feminism and troubles them.

Keywords:

• feminism
• second-wave
• personal politics

Notes

1. For a history of the women's movement in the USA, see Ruth Rosen (2000).

2. See for example, Third World Gay Liberation, ‘Platform’, in Baxandall and Gordon (2000, p. 64); Third World Women's Alliance, ‘Statement’, in Baxandall and Gordon (2000, p. 65).

3. See Benita Roth (2004), Becky Thompson (2002), Wini Breines (2002, 2006). Representative works of feminist theory by women of color in the 1980s and 1990s include Patricia Hill Collins (1990), Beverly Guy Sheftall (1995), Alma Garcia (1997), Gloria Anzalua (1987); bell hooks (1981), Audre Lorde (1984) and Trinh MinhHa (1989).

4. See Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon (2000, p. 243).

5. For a discussion of the differences between academic feminism and global activism around girls’ education, see Nellie Stromquist (2000).