"If we want to change we must be willing to teach" : Exploring the potential of intersectional feminist pedagogy to change oppressive behaviours and ease a conflict in a Catalan secondary school.

Abstract: Whereas transformative pedagogy is a well researched subject, intersectional feminist pedagogy and specifically Transversal dialogue has not been used to ease conflict in Catalonia. This research examines the potential for intersectional feminist pedagogy to change oppressive behaviours in both students and teachers in a classroom conflict in a Catalan secondary school. Using ethnography, the thesis describes and analyses a five month research process, which involved participant observation, participatory action research and anti-oppressive sessions using Transversal dialogue. By concluding that changes in oppressive behaviours in both teacher and students can be empowering, the research challenges the idea put forward by Kevin Kumashiro about changes occurring through crisis. Rather, I argue that Edyta Just’s adaptation of Deleuzian philosophy to pedagogy offers a more flexible framework to understand these changes. This thesis aims to contribute to intersectional feminist pedagogy by first demonstrating that changes in oppressive behaviours can occur in empowering ways and second that theories of how to bring about those changes need to be flexible.