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Making a Difference: Feminism, Post-Modernism and the Methodology of EducationalResearchAuthor(s): Morwenna GriffithsSource: British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 219-235Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of BERAStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1500609 .Accessed: 24/04/2011 10:09

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British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1995

Making a Difference: feminism,

post-modernism and the methodology of educational research

MORWENNA GRIFFI'IHS, University of Nottingham

ABSTRACT Different versions of feminism and post-modernism are surveyed and briefly described. The current debate about the relationship between feminism and post-modernism is reviewed with particular regard to the challenges each set of theories offers to traditional epistemologies. The paper concludes with a section in which suggestions are made about the influence of feminism and post-modernism on the methodology of educational research-including action research. The suggestions occur in the context of a reflection on the author's own recent research projects.

This paper reviews and furthers the complex debate about the value of feminisms and

post-moderisms for educational research. The paper begins with a survey of recent discussions about the relationship between feminism and post-modernism. It then goes on to relate the theoretical debates to practical decisions about research methodology, with a section focused on the author's own recent research projects into personal identity and into primary classroom practice. It is suggested how educational researchers can take account of the arguments and insights derived from both feminists and post-modernists in their research, whether or not they subscribe wholeheartedly to either perspective.

1. Introduction

Feminism is not just theoretically significant. Educational practices and educational outcomes are damaged by sexism. This is because there is a prevailing sexism both in and out of formal educational institutions: schools, universities, local authorities, govern- ing bodies, government departments, educational publishing, and voluntary pressure groups. Inevitably sexism also distorts how such educational practices and outcomes are understood and researched. This is precisely the concern of feminist epistemology: how to improve knowledge and remove sexist distortions. Anyone who looks into the matter-into finding non-sexist methodologies of gathering/using knowledge-will very soon come up against post-modern perspectives. Indeed my use of the word 'distort' in

0141-1926/95/020219-17?1995 British Educational Research Association

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this paragraph would be challenged by post-modernists who would claim that there is no

single foundational knowledge which is true for everyone, and, therefore, 'distortion' is an inappropriate concept in this context. Even to established researchers this highly abstract set of arguments can be off-putting and even deskilling. It is the purpose of this paper to provide an overview of the arguments of feminist epistemologies and of their engagement with post-modem perspectives in order to facilitate a wider debate.

In this paper I begin by looking at the relationship between feminism and post-mod- ernism, and go on to reflect on the implications for research methodology. The structure of the argument is as follows. In the next section, Section 2, I remark on how far there is a connection between feminist and post-modern approaches to epistemology. Sections 3 and 4 are brief overviews. In Section 3 I look at different feminisms, together with a glance at their epistemological implications. Section 4 is a sketch of a framework for understanding the relevance of post-modernism to feminism. Section 5 contains some feminist responses. Finally, in Section 6 I look at methodological implications by reflecting on the processes of my own recent research, which is partly reflective-philo- sophical and partly reflective-classroom-based action research.

In a paper with such a large scope, some caveats are in order. I aim to provide a survey (rather than a detailed discussion) of the main issues, in order to provide a framework in which to reflect on practice. I believe that this is a worthwhile exercise, because the field is fast moving, there is little consensus about it, and people working within educational research typically do not work within narrow paradigms given by academic boundaries. On the contrary, one strength of researchers working in this field of enquiry is to be found in their willingness to be interdisciplinary. Keeping up with just one discipline is difficult enough. For researchers working across the boundaries it is important that there are continuing attempts to bring together recent arguments from diverse fields. A difficulty of such surveys is that statements made in the course of the

argument become over-generalised and unsupported. I have tried to provide some guard against this with the use of references and footnotes.

2. Approaches

Both feminism and post-modernism challenge traditional conceptions of epistemology. By 'traditional conceptions of epistemology', I refer to the tradition, rooted in Descartes, Hume and Kant, which is presently to be found in Popper, Quine and Davidson. It is an epistemology founded on the quest for certainty and sure foundations. In its traditional guise it includes no reference to politics-politics, in the sense of the deployment of power, whether in face-to-face or very large groups of people. Whether the foundations are thought to be empirical (sense data), rational thought or clearly perceived ideas, there is no room for politics in building the foundations.

Both feminism and post-modernism made their challenges, in part, by refusing to assume away politics. Both of them draw attention to the deep and irreducible connections between knowledge and power.

The feminist challenge arises from a perspective which is directly concerned with politics: a perspective focusing on the oppression of women. The politics of taking a feminist perspective seemed straightforward enough in the early days of the new wave of feminism, 25 years ago: sisterhood was powerful. Studies focusing on women and girls proliferated. However, the position has rapidly become increasingly complicated. Class, race, nationality and sexuality have combined to make feminist politics increas-

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research

ingly complex and ambiguous. The very possibility of taking any (let alone any one) feminist perspective has been brought into question.

During the historical period that the new feminisms were formulating their challenges to 'male' knowledge, traditional epistemology was being brought into question from other directions, which had their origins in much older debates. These challenges have gained increasing weight and influence in recent decades. These debates have been dominated by European theorists, such as Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. They found their way into English language social theory relatively early and have finally begun to influence the mainstream of English language philosophy (Rorty, 1979; Rajchman & West, 1985).

Post-modernists challenged the supposed neutrality of traditional epistemology by arguing that the fundamental categories of 'truth' and 'knowledge' were not only irreducibly complex and ambiguous but also saturated with politics.

Thus, over the last four decades, challenges to traditional epistemology have been articulated both within feminism and within post-modernism. Indeed, in sharing a common time span, they have also come to see that they share some common ground. Consequently, there has been an uneasy relationship between the two. The relationship has been uneasy partly because it is unclear how common the ground really is [1], and partly because the relationship is not a partnership of equals. Feminists, have responded in a variety of ways to this situation, as I describe in Section 5.

3. Western Feminisms

In 1983 Alison Jaggar published a book, Feminist Politics and Human Nature. It included a careful analysis of different kinds of Western feminism: liberal, Marxist, radical and socialist. In 1984, Hester Eisenstein marked a similar division between feminists who emphasise equality with men (Jaggar's liberals, Marxists and socialists) and feminists who emphasise difference from men (Jaggar's radicals). Both authors warned their readers about dangers inherent in the approaches of the radicals-while both were also impressed by the power of the radicals' critiques. Radical feminists emphasised that the domination of women by men was rooted in irreducible differences between males and females. The starting point of the radical feminists' analysis was sexuality. Many of them called for a woman-centred, woman-identified, often lesbian, often separatist, politics, in celebration of women's values and abilities. The fear expressed by both Jaggar and Eisenstein was related to the risk of valorising a femininity which had been created by masculinity. They pointed out that it was in danger of further strengthening the traditional construction of a gender dichotomy, by celebrating the entirely traditional values of nurturance and motherhood. At the same time that this largely English language view of Western feminism was gaining ground, French speaking feminists were making play with Derrida's use of 'difference/ance' in the deconstruction of discourse.

The fears expressed by Jaggar and Eisenstein have not been realised, no doubt partly because the same fears were felt by the many others who, like them, were also impressed by the power of the critiques. As a result, the divisions of the early 1980s have not frozen. Instead, a rich, often contradictory, set of feminisms has evolved. The history is not like a tree where separate branches divide into yet more branches. It is more like a river delta where branches separate and recombine and then diverge again in new combinations. It can be argued that ideas of 'difference' (in both the English and

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Derridean senses), have become the key to understanding the recent evolution of feminist ideas and politics.

Iris Young, writing in 1990, describes three different ways in which the idea of difference has been central: equality in difference, rather than in androgyny ('equal but different' from men); differences among women, including those of 'race', class, sexuality, age, disability ('equal but different' from other women); and the logic of identity and difference analysed in post-modem theory. A further kind of difference, not mentioned by Young, is to be found in Italian feminism, which is only just reaching English-speaking audiences. The Milan Women's Bookstore Collective focuses on individual differences between women, especially those which make some women more powerful than others for reasons which are unconnected with social differences such as class or race. The collective action they advocate does not draw on the concept of 'social justice' which they find masculinist [2].

Iris Young's last category, difference as analysed in post-modernism, is especially complex. It includes feminists interested in making a global criticism of modernism, such as Jane Flax (1990) or Christine di Stefano (in Nicholson, 1990). It also includes those influenced by (and often critical of) individuals like Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard or Rorty. (Both Foucault and Derrida are sometimes called 'post-structuralist', although each of them resists such labels. I say more about the relation between post-modernism and post-structuralism later.) Many English speakers have taken inspiration from the French feminisms of Kristeva, Cixous and Irigaray. Bronwyn Davies is an example of an educational theorist who acknowledges her debt to these women, all of whom could be said to be working within a post-modernist framework (1989). A thorough and erudite overview of feminists' encounters within this French tradition is provided by Rosi Braidotti (1991).

How do feminists think that knowledge can be improved? The answers vary, of course, with the kind of feminism espoused. Writing in post-structuralist France, Irigaray provides a critique of the masculine imaginary which generates a rationality which is characterised by the principle of identity, the principle of non-contradiction and binarism (Whitford, 1988, 1991 a). She suggests that women's imaginary might be fluid rather than solid, taking touch rather than sight as its dominant organising metaphor (Young, 1990, pp. 84, 193). Lorraine Code, from a position sharply critical of Irigaray's theorisation of sexual difference, argues for epistemic responsibility: knowledge gained by 'receptive- ness and humility' and sensitivity to the particular and concrete case (Braidotti, 1991, p. 190). Donna Haraway combines post-structuralist and socialist feminist perspectives to argue for 'situated knowledges' in which 'the only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular' (Braidotti, 1991, p. 272). Sandra Harding, arguing against post-moder fragmentation, proposes a standpoint epistemology in which it is argued that the subjectivity of the researcher, in terms of gender, race and class, is crucial in the research design, and must be taken into account when dividing beliefs 'into the false and probably less false' so that it is understood that there are no 'transcendental, certain grounds for belief of the sort claimed by conventional epistemologies (Harding, 1991, p. 8, p. 169). It is possible to continue. For instance, there is epistemology founded in democracy and 'communities of resistance' (Seller, 1988), in female embodiment (Young, 1990), and, influenced by post-structuralism, in resistance to the dominant discourse, by interrupting it and prising it apart (Walkerdine, 1988, p. 6) or choosing to speak from the margins (bell hooks, 1991) [3].

Given the range, together with the bitterness and the depth of some of the disagree- ments, it might have been thought that there was nothing common to all the suggestions.

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research 223

(Indeed, it is usual to note the disagreements and unusual to point out that a common thread runs through this diverse range of feminist challenges to traditional epistemol- ogy.) The differences are significant practically as well as theoretically. There is, indeed, no one feminist epistemology on offer. However, there are commonalities to be discerned.

Commonality arises, in the first place, because the epistemologies are all feminist epistemologies. In their different ways they are all concerned with women and girls. Each one has been developed in response to the devaluation and disempowerment of women which other epistemologies underpin. Thus, from the start, all these epistemolo- gies have a moral/political stance. To be sure they disagree about the details of values and power, but both 'values' and 'power' are there as organising concepts. For all these feminists, politics and values must precede epistemology, because the analysis begins at that point. Facts are not value-free. On the contrary, the argument is that human knowledge is saturated with values, whether or not they are acknowledged. In short, feminist epistemologies in all their variety unite in turning traditional epistemology (though not all masculine epistemology) inside out. The question about whether values can be derived from facts is seen to be badly formulated. Facts come trailing their constituent values, and cannot be separated from them.

There is another thread running through all the feminist epistemologies, though it is not so easy to see. It is the importance of self or subjectivity. I use the phrase 'self or subjectivity' to indicate that I am not intending to choose between them for the purposes of this article. The terms are each used to mark the different traditions (Anglo-Saxon and Continental, respectively) which give rise to them. Even allowing for the extremely significant differences between them, they agree in one important respect: each indicates the subjective consciousness of an individual. In the case of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, this is more likely to be labelled 'experience'. The Continental tradition is more likely to use the term 'subjectivity' or 'positionality' to indicate the opacity of subjectivity and how provisional it is.

None of the feminist epistemologies assume or argue that the perspective of individual human beings can be superseded by the 'objective' 'view from nowhere' or by a 'God's

eye view'. All of them assume that the self or subjectivity is a starting point-though almost all of them go on, quickly, to point out that individual 'experience', 'perspec- tives', 'consciousness' or 'position in a discourse' are only the first step in a collective

enterprise of formulating a (feminist, usually) perspective. Thus Irigaray argues for the necessity of fostering a female community in which to discover a feminine subjectivity, different from the one created by males. Code's work explicitly starts with particular individuals in particular situations. Both Haraway's and Harding's epistemologies depend on taking individual perspectives and combining them, politically, into group perspectives. Seller, Young, hooks, and Walkerdine are all explicitly concerned with what they variously term individual experience or subjectivity.

4. Post-modernisms

In this section I argue (a) that there is a wide range of often mutually incoherent views about post-modernism (and how partial my own view is); (b) that it is possible to outline a framework to understand post-modernism in relation to feminism; and (c) how post-structuralism relates to post-modernism.

There is, if anything, less consensus about the meaning of 'post-modernism' than there is about 'feminism'. I shall say something about this range of views. This will be done

224 M. Griffiths

in only enough detail to provide a framework in which to discuss the relationship of

post-modernism and feminism. My own value position is relevant here. I have arrived at my understanding of these

issues because I am committed to social justice, of which feminism is one strand, and to the ethical/political enterprise which is education. I am interested in post-modernism, then, in so far as it fits the needs of those ethical/political values.

Now, it might have been the case that, when I first read post-modem theories, I found them so convincing and compelling that I used them to evaluate feminism and social justice, rather than the other way round. Similar shifts have occurred in my intellectual history: I was not always a feminist, for instance. However, this has not happened [4]. In fact, as the argument of this article should make clear, I share some-but only some-of the scepticism expressed by Beverley Skeggs that:

Postmodernism, as a publishing phenomenon, has pulled off the peculiar feat of re-constituting an overwhelmingly male pantheon of proper names to function as ritual objects of academic exegesis and commentary. (1991, p. 261)

and that it 'represents a crisis of legitimate masculine authority' which 'may seduce us into competitive gamesmanship' (p. 269). On the other hand, there is no doubt that some feminists and some educationists (including feminists) have benefited from their engage- ment with post-modernism. So, I am interested in post-modernism-but only in so far as it is relevant to my wider values. Bordo (1992) puts forward a very similar view to my own:

A good deal of the linguistic paraphernalia of academic postmodernism, for all its pretentiousness, has its origins in important insights and ideas that ought not to be dismissed out of annoyance with the elitism and insularity that are, after all, hardly new to academia. (p. 161)

The debate about post-modernism is characterised by a fragmentation of perspectives, an ambiguity of meanings and many redescriptions of the trends by those laying claim to their own view as the dominant one. This can itself be seen as a post-moder condition: comprising fragmentation, ambiguity, redescription and the denial of any 'master narrative' or unifying theory. Susan Bordo explains the situation with great elegance:

The 'postmodern' has been described and redescribed with so many different points of departure that the whole discussion is by now its own most exemplary definition. (1992, p. 159)

Beverley Skeggs lists some of the many definitions to show their disparity. A selection from her list follows:

an empirically discernible cultural condition, produced by the prolonged decline of late capital

a stylistic promiscuity favouring eclecticism and the mixing of codes; parody; irony; playfulness and the celebration of the surface 'depthlessness' of culture

a challenge to the Englightenment, to rationality

a challenge to empiricism and positivism. (1991, p. 257) Linda Nicholson, on the other hand, asserts that these disparate descriptions have a certain coherence. She argues that there is a connection between the rejection of the possibility of a transcendent reason and the necessity for multiple theories which do not attempt to transcend the boundaries of cultures and regions.

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research 225

Postmodernists have gone beyond earlier historicist claims about the inevitable situatedness of human thought within culture to focus on the very criteria by which claims to knowledge are legitimated....Therefore the postmoder cri- tique has come to focus on philosophy and the very idea of a possible theory of knowledge, justice or beauty. (1990, pp. 3-4)

Nicholson admits, however, that this discussion gives no more than a 'simplified summary', and that the different positions within post-modernism are 'less consistent than this brief overview might suggest' (1990, p. 5).

The relationship of post-modernism to emancipatory projects is in doubt. On the one hand, post-modernism stands accused of leading to an irresponsible relativism which gives us no reason to choose one narrative or discourse over another. Habermas has argued that only the grand narratives of modernism can provide the legitimacy of the emancipatory project. He argues that the post-modernism of Lyotard ends in incoherence and futility. However, there is another version of post-modernism which would hold that there is an emancipatory potential within it. Bauman (1994) argues that the post-moder celebration of diversity and contingency means, at least, that it will not end in the death camps of the Holocaust, the result, he argues, of the uniformity demanded by modernity. He suggests a cautious optimism. The survival of post-modern tolerance and diversity cannot be guaranteed by any metanarrative of God, reason or history-but at least it knows that it lives without guarantee. He says: 'This makes it exceedingly anxiety-prone. And this also gives it a chance' (1994, p. 355).

Like Bauman, some theoreticians of multiple differences and multiple oppression look to post-modernism to provide a politics for the dispossessed. Walkerdine intends that her analysis should shed an emancipatory light on educational practices relating to working- class girls. Likewise, Ali Rattansi, in an analysis of the possibilities of moving beyond the multicultural/anti-racist impasse, argues for an alternative framework, in which the disintegrated subject of post-modernism has a role to play in constructing a politics of race in Britain. He says that such a politics begins from:

A multiplicity of axes for the production of possibly conflicting subject positions and potential practices and interactions. (1992, p. 36)

Likewise, bell hooks says:

Radical postmodernist practice, most powerfully conceptualised as a 'politics of difference' should incorporate the voices of displaced, marginalised, ex- ploited and oppressed black people. (p. 25)

Finally, Burbules & Rice (1991) see little coherence in differing viewpoints on post-modernism but they identify three recurring ideas in the 'so many different views' of post-modernism:

First is the rejection of absolutes...no single rationality, no single morality and no ruling theoretical framework,...second is the perceived saturations of all social and political discourses with power or dominance...A third idea that recurs is the celebration of 'difference' (pp. 395-396)

What is to be made of this disparity? Those looking for a simple definition will find it frustrating. Any simple definition will be a misleading oversimplification (see the quotations from Susan Bordo and Linda Nicholson, above). However, it is possible to draw up a framework with which to understand it better. Given the disparity and, even more, given the post-moder aversion to coherence, unity and metanarrative, the

226 M. Griffiths

framework should be seen as an oversimplification and a starting point, rather than an accurate, small-scale, map of an intellectual area.

In drawing up a framework with which to understand the disparate perspectives on post-modernism, it is important to note that there is a difficulty about answering the question 'Post when exactly?': 'when was modernism?' (Williams, 1989)-or 'modernity?' The 'modernism' referred to in 'post-modernism' is sometimes thought of as modernism in art including painting, architecture and music. (See Huyssen [1990] for a discussion of this interpretation of 'modernism'.) Literary theory also makes use of the term 'modernism' where it refers to self-reflexive texts, which break with the social realism of the nineteenth century (Williams, 1989). It may also be thought of as 'modernity'. What counts as 'modernity' is dependent on the intellectual tradition being discussed. In social/political theory modernity is consumer capitalism (late capitalism) or, alternatively, is the hope of social amelioration and human perfectibility by the systematic application of the principles of rationality and justice. In philosophy, modernity is associated with the Cartesian revolution and the hope of providing a unified understanding of the world. Richard Rorty has popularised this philosophical concept of 'modernity' as the concept of knowledge as the 'mirror of nature' [5].

Disparity in the concept of 'modernism/modernity' results in an equivalent disparity in the concept of 'postmodernism'. The key ideas include the insistence of the situatedness of human thought, the impossibility of discovering a neutral transcendental reason or an autonomous self-legislating self. Knowledge, so far from being the 'mirror of nature', is particular to the discourse(s) in which it is produced. The self, so far from being an empirical, knowable or perceivable object, is a subjectivity produced by the discourse in which it finds and positions itself. This subjectivity is in a state of change, as it positions and repositions itself in terms of (at least) gender, race and class, and is changed and reacts to the changing discourse.

So far I have referred to 'post-modernism'. I have mostly avoided mentioning 'post-structuralism'. In my view, 'post-structuralism' is best understood as a variant of 'post-modernism'. I say this because post-modernism is such a wide term, referring, as I have described above, to a variety of positions and perspectives on the Enlightenment and the conditions of late capitalism. It is possible to distinguish the particular strand which is known as post-structuralism [6].

Post-structuralism, like post-modernism in general, is derived from a tradition starting with Descartes. For Descartes, the clearly perceiving, rational, I-the 'Cogito'-was the source and first building block of knowledge. Structuralists of various persuasions reacted against this by arguing for the importance of universal basic structures. Saussure in linguistics, Levi-Strauss in anthropology, and Lacan in psychoanalysis, produced universalising cross-cultural (androcentric) theories. Post-structuralists have called such projects into question, arguing that any universalising tendency is inevitably false. Foucault and Derrida are representative-and influential-examples of post-structuralist thinkers. They insist that events and situations have to be analysed and understood in the interplay of discourse and subjectivity at particular times and places. Both of them also insist on the importance of language as constitutive of reality and subjectivity, even while its parts shift their meanings according to circumstances. Braidotti explains, using terminology oddly reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon philosophy in the heyday of conceptual analysis (which was also reacting against Grand Theory):

Consistent with the premise that philosophy today can only be conjugated in the plural, contemporary French philosophers are not systems-builders. They

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research

rather prefer to define themselves as providers of services, of 'toolboxes', working with ideas which are programmes for action rather than dogmatic blocks. (1991, p. 3)

From a feminist perspective, post-structuralism is a significant strand in post-modernism. Post-structuralists, more than other post-modernists, have been taken up and found useful. This applies to both male and female theorists. Foucault has been particularly widely used (Diamond & Quinby, 1988; Nicholson, 1990). Another strong post-struc- turalist influence comes from the French feminist theorists, Kristeva and Irigaray, who draw from and build on the work of Lacan. Some theorists identify a 'feminist post-structuralism'. Chris Weedon's book provides an early, sustained argument for such a theoretical position (1987). It can also be found in Davies (1989)-though she calls it 'deconstruction-reconstruction', rather than post-structuralist. More recently, Jones (1993) and Weiner (1994) argue for the value of post-structuralism for educational research.

This section of the article has provided a sketch of a framework for understanding the relevance of post-modernism for feminism and educational research. In brief it has been as follows. There is no one characterisation of post-modernism which would attract universal assent. This is partly a result of the different 'modernisms' or 'modernities' against which post-moderisms define themselves. One set of these positions is often known as post-structuralism, which indicates their academic origins in reactions to structuralisms. Nevertheless, I identify the following as key ideas in post-modernism. There is no foundational narrative. All human ideas are situated. Thus there is no neutral, universal reason available as an arbiter of truth or knowledge. Similarly, there is no empirical, knowable object called the 'self' waiting to be discovered or observed. The 'self' is best understood as a subjectivity produced within the discourses in which it is positioned and positions itself.

5. Feminist Responses to Post-modernism

I began the article by remarking on the similarity of interests that are shared by feminisms and post-modernists. I also noted that such shared interests were not always enough for a happy relationship. Feminists have expressed doubts about power imbal- ance and motives. Indeed the whole area is deeply contested. The tone of much of the debate shows how passionately it is felt. Its content shows the complexity of the points at issue. The previous two sections of this article should have gone some way to explaining why the complexity is inevitable: neither 'feminism' nor 'post-modernism' stands for a simple set of ideas. I shall list some of the main ways that feminists have responded to post-modernism, giving examples of particular responses.

(a) A Fear that They Are Trying to Shut Us Up

Nancy Hartsock in the USA and Sabina Lovibond in the UK express a similar suspicion about the use of post-modernism for women. Why is it, they ask, that men are turning to post-modernism which calls voice, liberty, equality, truth and knowledge into question just when women are finding a voice, when liberation, justice and equality are thinkable, if not yet quite within grasp, and when women are able, at last, to collect knowledge and use it. Nancy Hartsock puts it:

Why is it that just at the moment when so many of us who have been silenced begin to demand the right to name ourselves, to act as subjects rather than as

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objects of history, that just then the concept of subjecthood becomes problem- atic? Just when we are forming our own theories about the world, uncertainty emerges about whether the world can be theorised....I contend that these intellectual moves are no accident (but no conspiracy either). (1990, pp. 163-164)

Rosi Braidotti joins in, with a related complaint about Derrida:

The subject of feminism comes into being in Derrida's thought as the new form of the phallic logocentric stance. In other words: in the early phase Derrida attacks male phallogocentrism, whereas in the more recent work he appoints feminists to the place of phallocracy, thus freeing the philosopher, which he is, to a creative and phallus-free position, a 'becoming-woman' of philosophy. (1991, p. 105)

Beverley Skeggs thinks we should leave post-modernism severely alone:

Postmodernism represents a hegemonic war of position within academia. It seems to be an attempt by disillusioned male academics, who feel they are no longer at the 'centre' or have authority and control over knowledge, to win back credibility and influence. (1991, p. 256)

Postmodernism impairs the construction of projects such as feminism. Whilst the problems with the homogeneity of the term 'woman' have been recognised, political engagement still renders it necessary. (1991, p. 261)

(b) Trying Not to Get Seduced-or screwed

In recognition of the validity of the fears expressed in (a) above, some feminists counsel caution. Benhabib points out that feminists would do well to look at what they are getting into. She warns that:

in allying themselves with postmodernist positions, feminists, willy-nilly, are getting...entangled in a set of assumptions which may leave their position untenable. (1992, p. 210)

Benhabib was addressing her argument to the post-modernist work of Lyotard. In a similar vein, Biddy Martin (1988) thinks that:

It is essential that feminist thinkers not be seduced by the work of Foucault, that we not attempt to apply the hypotheses he articulates to the situation of women without careful attention to the implications of his work.

Meaghan Morris takes the androcentricism of Foucault as a virtue, in that it is easier to see that his theories cannot be taken over wholesale, useful though feminists may find them. She says:

Foucault's work is not the work of a ladies' man: and (confounding the received opinions of the advocates of plain speech, straight sex) some recent flirtations between feminists and other more susceptible thinkers would seem to suggest that there are far worse fates than wanking (like being thoroughly screwed). (1990, p. 26)

Morris may be unconcerned-even glad-that the male theorists are not concerning themselves with feminism. Braidotti, however, protests about the one-sidedness of the discussion. She complains that feminists learn from and engage with the male post-struc- turalist corpus, but that: 'The male texts, however, either ignore or minimize the

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research 229

importance of the feminist theoretical work' (1991, p. 275). Diana Knight (1993) suggests that Braidotti, herself, is in danger of getting diverted (controlled?) by her own relative loyalty to the male philosophical tradition. If the feminists' texts go beyond the male versions of post-structuralism, then 'from what point of view does the lack of male interest matter?' (p. 452).

(c) We Are All Post-modernists Now

Jane Flax and Judith Butler take quite a different view. In their view any feminism which is not post-moder in its use of categories is essentialist and self-defeating. Jane Flax says:

As a type of postmodern philosophy feminist theory reveals and contributes to the growing uncertainty within Western intellectual circles about the appropri- ate grounding and methods for explaining and interpreting human experience. (1990, p. 40)

This view is endorsed by many feminists interested in post-moder ideas. It is pointed out that the feminist debate around differences among women means that post-structural- ism offers a method of understanding diverse subjectivities. This means postulating a 'feminist post-structuralism' which depends on the existence of active subjects who position themselves, as well as being positioned by others. Davies, Jones, Walkerdine and Weedon all take up this position.

(d) Having your Cake and Eating It-and with a post-modern view of truth, why not?

The tensions between feminisms and post-modernisms can be heard (more or less explicitly, more or less muted) in the writings of those who give a cautious welcome to post-modernism, so long as it remains subordinate to their concerns for feminism and social justice (especially race and class). bell hooks, who writes as a black American woman with a working-class background, explicitly emphasises the importance of social justice. She begins an article on post-modernism by recounting an argument she had with a colleague. She is drawn to his anti-post-modernist views even while she argues against them:

My defense of postmodernism and its relevance to black folks sounded good, but I worried that I lacked conviction, largely because I approach the subject cautiously and with suspicion.

Disturbed not so much by the 'sense' of postmodernism but by the conventional language used when it is written or talked about and by those who speak it, I find myself on the outside of the discourse looking in. As a discursive practice it is dominated primarily by the voices of white male intellectuals and/or academic elites who speak to and about each other with coded familiarity. (1991, pp. 23-24)

This position is also held by Susan Bordo, as I commented earlier.

(e) What's Post-modernism?

Some feminists ignore post-modern ideas. A glance at journals like Gender and Education, Feminist Review or Women's Studies International Forum shows that there is plenty of feminist research (in and out of education) which takes no notice of post-modern theory, even when it is, apparently, addressing the same sorts of questions. In a paper notable for its post-modern presentation, Ailbhe Smyth (1992) argues that

230 M. Griffiths

while post-modernism may have its uses, it is often right to ignore it. She takes issue with Nicholson's statement that post-modernism is an unavoidable issue for feminists, pointing out that from the perspective of most of the world including, she suggests, Dublin, the debates of post-modernism neither improve the lives of women nor contribute to their survival and growth. These women not only ignore post-modernism but also are right to do so.

The most significant concern about post-modernism for feminists is the post-moder call to recognise the demise of Enlightenment goals of justice, freedom and equality, just when they are in women's reach. This concern is also of particular concern to educationists. In their careful article on the matter, Burbules & Rice say:

We do not question for a moment the relations of dominance, or histories of conflict and hostility, or gulfs of non-understanding or misunderstanding across differences, that undercut conventional educational aims and practices. Indeed, identifying and criticizing these is the necessary starting point for any new thinking on the problems of education. But unless one conceives freedom only negatively (as the mere avoidance or removal of such impediments), it is not clear what follows from this critique for educational or political practice. (1991, pp. 398-399)

They go on to argue that without a conception of 'positive freedom' which identifies social conditions in which freer thought and action are possible, educational theory is impossible. They argue that educational theory presupposes at least some Enlightenment ideals, and positive values-and that critiques without positive value positions inevitably smuggle in some value positions unacknowledged [7]. They distinguish carefully between post-modern educational thought which 'extends and redefines modernist principles, such as democracy, reason and equality' and that which 'deconstructs and rejects these principles' (p. 393). Only the first can be of use in education, they say, and I agree.

The end of Section 5 marks the end of the part of the article which is about theoretical areas which include education but which go beyond it. Feminism and post-modernism are related to a much wider set of concerns than just education. In Section 6, I talk directly about education and educational research. So far, the article has been at a level of great generality and abstraction. In contrast, in Section 6 I focus not on generalities of research but on two real examples, taken from my own research.

6. Methodological Implications for Educational Research

There are two strands to my own research: philosophical and classroom-based action research. In my research, both are grounded in feminism and each is informed by post-moder discourse. Each strand affects the other. What I conclude philosophically affects how I act in the classroom, and what I do in the classroom affects how I argue philosophically.

My philosophical interest, over some years, has been in personal identity. The theory of identity that I have been developing has a number of sources. One of the most influential is the feminist theorising of the politics of identity. Meanwhile my classroom- based action research has been undertaken alongside a class teacher in a school, which I chose for its social and ethnic mix, as well as for its long-term commitment to social justice. We have been researching into social justice through investigations of the

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research

children's capacity to learn about their own learning, and into their needs for support and challenge.

Why do I claim that the research is feminist? It is not, after all, specifically about girls' or women's education. On the other hand, it is epistemologically and methodologically feminist. I have pointed out that all feminist epistemologies have two things in common: they spring from a moral/political stance which upholds freedom, justice and solidarity for women, and they pay explicit attention to 'self' or 'subjectivity' of women. Both of these are true of my research. First, my reflections on identity are continually tested against the experience of girls and women, either using research or using personal knowledge. In the action research projects the girls and boys were considered separately as groups during the analysis, to ensure that the particular views and interests of the gender group had been included. Second, all my work on identity uses direct accounts of experience-though without assuming that such accounts are giving a true report of an inner self. For instance, I began my reflections into the construction of the self with autobiographical narrative (Griffiths & Seller, 1992) into which the general theory was interlaced. It was also grounded in my observations of children in an infant classroom, defining themselves-or being defined-as girls and boys, Jews and Christians, whites and Asians.

Post-modernist influences can also be seen. As explained in Section 4, I am taking post-modernism to be characterised by: a suspicion of foundational positions, there being no neutral arbiters of truth or knowledge (or 'God's eye view'), a rejection of the notion of the unified empirical self as the source of action and reason, and an emphasis on the power of discourse to create subjectivity. However, as explained, the post-modernist influences are refracted through the lens of feminism. Thus, for me, post-modernist influences are overwhelmingly a subsection of feminist influences. However, my focus here is on the fact that they are post-modern as well as feminist, a feminist post-mod- ernism, perhaps.

Philosophy of education in this country is overwhelmingly in the Anglo-Saxon, analytical tradition. I am no exception: I work within this tradition, even though I have come to deviate from it. The tradition is one which has only just begun to bridge the chasm which yawns between it and the 'Continental or European tradition' (often referred to as 'Theory' or 'Critical Theory' in this country). The autonomous, rational self is a central assumption in the analytical tradition. The irrelevance of gender, race or class is axiomatic, since this tradition of philosophy sees itself as investigating human universals, regardless of local contingencies. The discussion of personal identity is located within the 'philosophy of mind', and is largely concerned with the unity of the category of 'self', and ways in which such a self transforms its desires and beliefs into actions. Political philosophy draws on this self in its theories of autonomy and social contract. My own work brings the categories of analytical philosophy into question, using post-modern insights and perspectives.

Themes in my philosophical analysis of the self included the relation of autonomy to dependence, and the politics of identity. An early article on autonomy and dependence shows the post-modern influences at work both in the methods and the conclusions drawn (Griffiths & Smith, 1989). The paper was written in two voices, mine and Richard Smith's. The two voices showed a large measure of agreement-but only occasionally did they speak as one. Each of us drew on personal experience and theory which seemed relevant to us. There was no claim that we were trying to reach a consensus. A section of the paper depended on the deconstruction of discourse. This section drew in part on Luce Irigaray's post-modern work on the logic of the male imaginary in the construction

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of rationality and autonomy. The conclusions in this paper included an argument that both educational practice and the people within it are subject to discourse, including the discourse of education, which can be deconstructed and reconstructed.

My later work on self and identity takes up these themes. It draws on earlier work on the politics of identity which, like the article on autonomy and dependence, is written in two voices (mine and Anne Seller's) which have some measure of agreement, but which do not reach total consensus (Griffiths & Seller, 1992). Thus, for instance, it is claimed that our view about exclusions:

implies a...politics of personal experience/respect/humility. It also implies/ does not imply a cautious, if not hostile, attitude towards theory. (1992, p. 143)

The use of the '/' indicates that there was either a doubt about emphasis or a disagreement between us, the two authors. We did not aim for the traditional single view of a jointly authored paper.

Published versions of the educational implications of this theory of identity do not appear in dual voices. This is partly an artifact of what is acceptable by journal referees. In one version, however, it is made clear that there is no intention to provide the last word or the rational view (Griffiths, 1993). There is a call made for a conversation (as there is in this paper): for knowledge to be developed, but in the recognition that such knowledge is provisional and will always remain so. The content of the theories of personal identity is also recognisably post-modem. They continue to argue for a version of authenticity which does not depend on an unchanging unity of self, but which does depend on the discourses in which the self finds itself and the constraints on the subject positions available to it.

'Action research' is a term covering a range of research practices, loosely derived from Lewin's action research cycle (Griffiths, 1990). As John Elliott points out, it can be used by those with a positivist bent to test hypotheses, 'a form of technical rationality aimed at improving their technical skills' (1991, p. 55). (He himself does not hold this view.) It is also possible to argue that action research is hospitable to the methods of post-structuralist feminists since the tools of discourse analysis, and deconstruction are readily available. Also it is necessarily focused on micro structures and on the local, another requirement of post-structuralism [8].

The action research which I and Carol Davies have been carrying out is influenced by post-modernism. The decentring of subjectivity and knowledge is manifested in the methods and in the presentation of the action research. The methods used were designed to produce a multiply layered knowledge. Not all the information was shared. For instance, details might be confidential to one adult, or kept private by a child. Nonetheless such a piece of information could also contribute to the project through its influence on later actions and reflections. Our write-ups and spoken presentations were sometimes in separate voices, sometimes unanimous, never in a single 'objective', 'neutral' one. There was no 'God's eye view': all the views were situated. As far as the two adults were concerned, our reports were different, depending on our audience. Some reports were delivered verbally, some were written, some were published. The 'truth' of the project varied for particular purposes, inviting different and situated responses. Where reports were given by both of us, we made the effort to speak in our own voices rather than for the other (within the constraints of time and energy, and professional needs) (Griffiths & Davies, 1993; Davies, 1994; Griffiths, 1994).

We made few assumptions about the structures (of gender, class and race) in the class. The assumptions we made were always under question. Therefore, we have taken care

Feminism, Post-modernism and Educational Research

to listen to individual voices, and also to the voices of various groupings of class, gender, race, friendship, ability, etc., in the class. These groupings are shifting: individual children belonged to now one, now another. We noticed, for instance, how some children apparently chose their own gender, 'race', and class identities which were not necessarily the ones expected by 'objective' measures. For instance, one Asian girl always sat with a group of white girls. Another girl sat with both boys and girls indifferently, as if gender was relatively less salient for her. These examples meant that gender and race were used to question the evidence rather than as hard and fast categories. In post-modernist terms, the children may have been positioning themselves in discourse. We recognise how we inevitably affect possibilities for such positioning, if only by the ways in which we influenced the membership of groups and by the terminology in which we discussed that membership with the children.

At an earlier stage I could not have been explicit about the feminist and post-modem underpinning of the methods and presentation of my research. I make no apology for this. Indeed I would argue that the engagement with ideas is the more fruitful because it occurs as part of an effort to achieve some end. Thus I would align myself with the approach of Razack (1993) who weaves the insights of critical pedagogy (including some feminist, post-modernist ones) into her ongoing project to use stories for social change. I think this is more fruitful than the approach of, say, Jones (1993), who derives a general research programme from a discussion of post-structuralism. Such an approach depends on a particular, and therefore highly contentious, version of 'feminist post-struc- turalism', which needs to be accepted or rejected as a package.

I have been describing how feminist methodology and epistemology may be interwo- ven with some very different approaches to educational research. The purpose of my description has been to ground the abstractions of the first part of the paper in the realities of trying to do educational research in two particular cases. My argument is that the essential feature is the conversation between the researcher and the theory. The conversation that educational researchers have with feminism and post-modernism must be a continuing one, a conversation that informs ongoing research rather than produces yet another method or methodology to choose or reject. This article is intended as a contribution to the conversation.

Correspondence: Morwenna Griffiths, School of Education, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

NOTES

[1] For instance, see Benhabib's discussion of Jane Flax's view that post-modem theses relating to the Death of Man, the Death of History and the Death of Metaphysics are reasons to show that feminism is a post-modem project. Benhabib argues that the feminist interpretation of these theses is not necessarily convergent with post-modem ones (Benhabib, 1992).

[2] The Milan Women's Bookstore Collective argues that political programmes of social justice are founded on a notion of equality which means the equality on women with men (1990, p. 121). In neutral (male) thought, they say, equality cannot allow for any difference which is a 'plus', because that difference would be used for domination. Against this idea, the Collective argues that political programmes should recognise a difference in which there is a 'plus'. They propose using an analysis of relations between women, using the ideas of symbolic motherhood and 'entrustment'. Otherwise the desires of women are lost. 'When need and desire lose their qualitative contents and are translated into a vague demand for power, then, of course, everything may seem to be a question of

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rights and justice. But then subjective experience is lost, along with its original content and its

potential riches' (1990, p. 134). [3] For example, see Stanley (1990), Davies (1989), Braidotti (1991), Lather (1988) and Kremer (1990)

for further discussion. [4] It is beyond the scope of this article to give reasons for this. It would require another article-at

least-to explain my arguments for holding to feminism rather than to post-modernism, where the two conflict. Other feminists react differently. For instance, Margaret Whitford claims that Susan Hekman is an example of someone who 'is a postmodernist first and a feminist, second; (feminism falls short insofar as it is still "modernist")' (Whitford, 1991b).

[5] Susan Bordo (1992) lists other suggestions for the 'when' of modernity: the Holocaust, the collapse of the hegemony of Western culture, the 'information explosion', or particular authors.

[6] Not surprisingly, given the ambiguity of the whole debate, my way of distinguishing post-structural- ism from post-modernism would not be universally agreed. While Hekman takes it that Foucault, for instance, is to be counted among post-modernists, other writers (e.g. Jones, following Lather) take

'post-modern' to refer to cultural shifts, and 'post-structural' to refer to the working out of those shifts within academic theory. As I have pointed out, Foucault himself resisted being identified as

post-structuralist, although Weedon (1987) and Jones (1993) both say that he is. [7] Compare Charles Taylor's critique of Foucault and Derrida for espousing freedom as the overriding

good, while disavowing any value position at all (1989, pp. 488-489). [8] I am indebted to Gaby Weiner for this observation.

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