Using E-mail Within a Classroom Based on Feminist Pedagogy

This article highlights parts of a descriptive study of elementary school children using technology and an array of telecommunications tools. The study analyzed naturalistic data to answer the question, “How does gender interface with computers and telecommunications?” Data for the overall study included field notes based on six months of participation and observation, 750 pages of e-mail messages, daily logs, newsletters, text and graphic documents generated by the children, and transcripts of interviews. This article depends on three data sources: e-mail messages, daily logs, and interviews. A feminist perspective informed the analysis. Analysis seemed to warrant three claims: both girls and boys used technology to confirm gender stereotypes, both girls and boys used technology to defy gender stereotypes, and gender biases in classroom interactions are more invisible and more difficult to eliminate than expected. A feminist perspective is essential in this struggle, but insufficient for eliminating the culturally embedded, long-standing gender biases pervading our schools and lives.