Explicit Use of Structural Tensions in the Encounter with Academic Culture Learning from a Feminist Epistemological Perspective

Abstract

Student groups are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. Many students social and cultural capital differs from traditional academic values, making them more reluctant to recognize themselves as valid knowledge producers. Under the motto Differences as a resource for learning the project has addressed these changed conditions. The project has explicitly made use of students´ experiences and understandings. With the assistance of "transitional objects" students has been more acquainted with academic norms and skills. The methods we have employed have raised the experiences from a personal and individual level to a common and theoretically informed level. The project has generated some good examples addressing how differences and impact of asymmetrical power relation in academic settings both can be acknowledged and utilized.