5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In 1994 seminal U.S. feminist bell hooks challenged educators to consider how “all pedagogical choices are political ones. Unlike most traditional classrooms, feminist classrooms are based on the knowledge that “the personal is political” in her ground-breaking book of “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom”. In 2001, U.S. feminist sociologist Danielle M. Currier expanded how “the key for feminist teachers is to acknowledge their own biases and perspectives and be able to work in a positive way with students who may or may not share their own view” as part of six tenants of “Feminist Pedagogy” in “Companion to Feminist Studies” edited by Nancy A. Naples.

With global attacks on higher education and the struggles for public educators to reflect and analyze on intersecting social inequalities, the need for feminist classrooms becomes ever more relevant. Not only for the sustainability of knowledge, but for the actual sustainability of academic disciplines, especially for Sociology and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Being able to create spaces for feminist educators is also about the sustainability of our work as professionals. How do we continue to thrive as feminists who are dedicated to the core values of education as a ‘practice of freedom’ where we center the very aspects of our lives that make us human? In a quest for understanding the ‘Anthropocene’ – our classrooms become the places where educators and students find their voices both individually and as part of the collective.