Feminist Practices and Experiential Pedagogies: Student Learning at the Commission on the Status of Women

Resumo

This article describes an undergraduate experiential learning course based at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The course introduces students to the evolution of global women’s rights movements and gender equality efforts at the United Nations (UN) while simultaneously preparing them to engage directly with human rights leaders and policymakers during the annual CSW meeting in early March. Prior to participation in the CSW, students learn about the history of women’s rights as human rights campaign alongside essential governing documents, meeting outcomes, and global resolutions on gender equality. Students likewise trace ongoing challenges to human rights mechanisms and consider how feminist leaders and movements have shaped and continue to influence human rights work today. In this article, I explore the ebbs and flows of the course, delivered across five different semesters, offering critical insight on the ways in which changes to the CSW environment and student learning outcomes inform pedagogical progression in course delivery, assessment and design. I spotlight one scaffolded assignment where students collaborate with others to create and distribute advocacy materials at the CSW as an illustrative example of experiential learning as feminist praxis. Drawing from student reflections, the article interweaves discussions of lessons learned as well as the value experiential education provides to the related interdisciplinary fields of clinical sociology, and women’s and gender, or feminist studies.