TEACHING GENDER THROUGH WRITING EXPERIENCE STORIES

Teaching gender perspectives to a student generation breastfed on equa lity and regarding itself as having surpassed the need for ''all that' ' necessitates new approaches. A technique labelled ''experience stori es'' has been developed to deal with these problems in both research a nd teaching. This technique, inspired by the memory-work method, is il lustrated in this article through a description of its application on one particular occasion. One hundred undergraduate students were prese nted with a written request to ''describe (concretely!) a situation oc curring today, yesterday or in the recent past when you felt/experienc ed/were made aware of being a woman/man.'' It is argued here how texts of this kind, based on the students' experiences and understandings o f gender, can be utilized as a point of departure in teaching gender p erspectives. It is further argued that this will in rum guarantee invo lvement on the part of the students, thus promoting reflection and cri tique of the understandings of gender in the disciplines. (C) 1998 Els evier Science Ltd.