The Centrality of Community in Education about Gender-Based Violence

Abstract

: The Time to Teach about Gender-Based Violence in Canada project asked teacher and student participants how Canadian educators could improve young people’s critical consciousness in relation to gender-based violence. Data collection involved individual interviews with 14 teachers, participatory workshops with three groups of students, and a virtual workshop in which teacher participants validated and expanded upon initial analysis of their interview data and responded to cellphilms produced in the student workshops. Drawing upon feminist and engaged pedagogy and situating gender-based violence as a form of difficult knowledge, analysis identifies community as a central concept for effective teaching about gender-based violence from both teacher and student perspectives. The concept of community is broken down into creating community, teaching in community, and connecting with communities. Teacher participants indicated that their capacity to create and sustain transformative learning communities would be enhanced by further support from the educational communities that they are members of.