ABSTRACT
Critical and feminist pedagogy discourses conceive power to be both repressive and productive. As discourses constructed in opposition to the totalizing forces of Patriarchy and Capitalism, I feminist and critical pedagogies are grounded in conceptions of power as (a) the possession of dominant forces (e.g., the Patriarchy, the bourgeoisie), and (b) repressive: used to dominate, oppress, coerce, deny. Such is the power that has marginalized and silenced women, the poor, people of color, and others. Such is the power to be resisted, to be overcome. In order to oppose these oppressive forces, both critical and feminist pedagogy discourses reclaim power for their own productive, creative, democratic purposes. From this perspective, power does not always repress-it can also liberate.
