Review by Choice Review
Concerned not only with documenting the everyday realities of the work of women teachers, Coffey and Delamont explore the place of feminist analysis in a postmodern and poststructuralist intellectual climate as a way of framing feminist educational theory and praxis. The authors regard the work of women teachers as part of the discursive and social practice of every day life and establish the contradictory nature of power and authority in the classroom. They begin with a discussion of the diversity in feminist thought and action by acknowledging multiple feminisms and identifying the ways in which gender, power, difference, subject, and agency are constituted though not determined by practice. Central to this analysis and understanding is that feminisms use theory and practice and, in terms of education, yield both praxis and pedagogy. Chapters are thematically rather than theoretically organized and seek to demonstrate the importance of such analysis for understanding contemporary classroom practice and experiences as well as for developing alternative pedagogies and educational futures. The authors conclude that feminism, albeit in different forms, is alive and well as a thought process, a tool for critical analysis, and a lived reality. This volume should be assigned reading for teacher education students and graduate researchers. L. R. Baxter University of Victoria
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
