G.08. Ecofeminist dialogues across History of Education and Children’s Literature

This panel aims to foster a critical dialogue on ecofeminism within the fields of the History of Education and Children’s Literature. Ecofeminism highlights the parallel and interconnected oppressions of women and nature, asserting that hierarchical and patriarchal systems of domination exploit both. Within the panel’s framework, stories and educational practices are conceived as key tools to promote gender equality, ecological justice, and non-hierarchical relationships with the natural world and with oppressed groups. The panel seeks to study how different historical pedagogies have framed the relationship between gender and the environment and how children’s literature has been enacting ecofeminist representations.

We welcome papers that explore History of education through an ecofeminist lens and contributions that examine how both contemporary and historical children’s narratives actively dismantle patriarchal and anthropocentric views. The panel encourages interdisciplinary approaches that bridge educational history, literary analysis, and critical theory. We particularly welcome proposals addressing, but not limited to, the following areas:

• Gender and eco-pedagogy between history of education and literary representations,
• Present and past narratives or educational practices that challenge anthropocentric, patriarchal and capitalist perspectives,
• Historical efforts to integrate gender and eco-critical ethics into both formal and informal educational contexts,
• The relation between gender and nature in textbooks and manuals,
• Eco-gender gaps in educational contexts and youth fiction,
• The connection between climate anxiety and gender in both youth fiction and educational areas.