Feminist researchers learning to teach: A Finnish case of university pedagogy in women's studies

This paper discusses developing and teaching Women's Studies (WS) pedagogy in the Finnish higher education, by focusing on the course's pedagogy and on the feminist pedagogy as a means to strengthen the identities of WS as a discipline and WS teachers as feminist scholars. The need to learn to teach is born from both the changes in current university structures and the desires of individual actors. Thus, the mobilization of differences, the theory/practice dichotomy, emotion and the relevance of the societal context in knowledge production should all be taken more seriously in relation to the strengthening of feminist teacher identities, while the allure of the supremacy of 'handling it all,' whether theory-wise or practically, should be rejected. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.