The @Filosoclips project: teaching feminist philosophy through popular culture in Spain

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines the results of the multimodal education project @Filosoclips, carried out during the 2017/2018 academic year in the Faculty of Education at Universidad de Málaga with students aged 16 and 17. The purpose of this project was to test the possibility of introducing texts by feminist thinkers into the official curriculum of the Philosophy course offered in Spain’s Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate programmes. The project constituted an educational innovation with students in the first year of the Spanish Baccalaureate programme, focusing on three basic objectives: to experiment with the addition to the high school reading curriculum of texts typically included in feminist studies; to give visibility to female philosophers in the Philosophy curriculum; and to conduct a practical trial in the classroom of the use of popular culture (music videos, in this case) as an instrument for developing critical thinking skills. Notable among the results of the project was the recognition of the importance for female students of incorporating major women philosophers and exploring topics that directly affect them in their everyday lives, such as the International Women’s Day marches across Spain on 8 March.

KEYWORDS:

• Philosophy
• popular culture
• curriculum
• citizenship
• secondary education
• cultural studies
• youth culture
• initial teacher education

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain under Grant FEM2017-83302-C3-3-P; University of Malaga under Grant LITMEC; and the University of Malaga under Grant PIE 17-172 and, Grant PIE 19-210.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain under Grant FEM2017-83302-C3-3-P (Produsage cultural en las redes sociales: industria, consumo popular y alfabetización audiovisual de la juventud española con perspectiva de género); the University of Malaga under Grant LITMEC (Multimodal Literacy and Cultural Studies); and the University of Malaga under Grant PIE 17-172, and under Grant PIE 19-210.

Notes on contributors

Laura Triviño-Cabrera

Laura Triviño-Cabrera is a Professor of Social Sciences Education at University of Malaga, Spain. She has a PhD in Education and Social Communication at University of Malaga (Spain), a PhD in Comparative Modernities at University of Minho (Portugal), and a PhD in History of Art at National Distance Education University (Spain). Her research focuses on the educational potential of a popular culture to train future teachers in feminisms.

Asunción Bernárdez-Rodal

Asunción Bernárdez-Rodal is a Professor of Communication at University Complutense of Madrid. She has a PhD in Information Sciences. She is a researcher with a special interest in Communication, Art and Gender Studies. She is the director of a research project entitled Cultural production in social networks: industry, popular consumption and audiovisual literacy of Spanish youth with a gender perspective subsidised by the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain.

Alba Velázquez-Felipe

Alba Velázquez-Felipe has the degree of Philosophy at University of Malaga. Her research interest concerns the teaching of feminist philosophy using popular culture in secondary education.