This book uses detailed case studies of two secondary schools to examine the relationship between curriculum choice and gender identity among fourteen-year-old pupils making their first choices about what subjects to pursue at exam level. It reveals a two way process. Pupils' decisions on what subject to take are influenced by how they perceive themselves in gender terms, and the curriculum once chosen reinforces their sense of gender divisions. The author looks at the influences on pupils at this stage in their lives from peers, family and the labour market as well as from teachers. She argues that the belief in freedom of choice and school neutrality espoused by many teachers can become an important factor in the reproduction of gender divisions, and that unless the introduction of the national curriculum is accompanied by systematic efforts to eradicate sexism from the hidden curriculum it will fail in its aim of creating greater equality of educational opportunity among the sexes.

What are the politics of gender within education? How are the issues of gender being explored in diverse educational settings? Does gender still matter in education? This book draws together the work from an international array of authors working at the cutting edge of gender research in education. From policy issues affecting single mothers to the incorporation of 'Southern learning' into Northern contexts, this collection provides a compelling argument for renewed engagement with gender issues at both macro and micro political levels within the full range of educational contexts - from primary to higher education.

What is the relationship of gender to the micropolitics of school reform? This book explores this timely research question, revealing the everyday struggles that happen between different factions of teachers with different definitions of what school means for students. The focus of this struggle, however, may not be on education, but rather on such underlying issues as gender. Using case studies, the author shows how gender politics can be used by teachers to delay reform.

Originally published in 1987. The perspectives, research methods and strategies adopted by researchers and teachers to investigate gender and education have been diverse and contradictory. This book provides an overview of developments and analyses the range of policy responses to the issues of sex inequality as well. Divided into six parts, the first indicates the range of feminist theories conceptualizing gender and provides context for the following parts on equality of opportunity; gender, power and schools; and studies on class, race and gender. The last parts explore how education and training provision in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were shaped by assumptions about masculinity and femininity; and examine patterns of policy making on equal opportunities at teacher, local and national levels.

A collection of studies examining the role of gender in teaching and learning in the traditionally male-dominated field of political science. Gender in the Political Science Classroom looks at the roles gender plays in teaching and learning in the traditionally male-dominated field of political science. The contributors to this collection bring a new perspective to investigations of gender issues in the political behavior literature and feminist pedagogy by uniting them with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The volume offers a balance between the theoretical and the practical, and includes discussions of issues such as curriculum, class participation, service learning, doctoral dissertations, and professional placements. The contributors reveal the discipline of political science as a source of continuing gender-based inequities, but also as a potential site for transformative pedagogy and partnerships that are mindful of gender. While the contributors focus on the discipline of political science, their findings about gender in higher education are relevant to SoTL practitioners, other social-science disciplines, and the academy at large. “A bold and compelling collection that asks important questions about the ways in which the teaching of Political Science reproduces gender inequities.” —Aeron Haynie

This book presents ideas on education, gender and intersectionality through a transdisciplinary frame by crossing disciplinary and methodological borders. Exploring the diversity of educational settings ranging from early childhood to adult education, it brings together scholars from various disciplines to discuss, deconstruct and problematize gender and education in relation to several themes in a comparative, intersectional, local, national, regional and international perspective. Each chapter approaches the topic in an intersectional and/or transnational manner and creates powerful gendered educational knowledge. Questions addressed in the book include: What are the challenges or barriers to gender-equal education? How can we understand the gaps between formal policies and educational practices? The chapters in the book illustrate how gender and education are relevant and needed concepts within the field of transdisciplinary research. The authors hail from a range of countries, such as Croatia, Indonesia, Turkey, UK, as well as the Nordic region, and they critically examine gender and education at all levels and in diverse sectors, and with varied lenses, such as neoliberalism in education, and the inclusion of newcomers and refugees. The work also critically investigates programs and pedagogical approaches, culture and values, knowledge and identity in teacher education. The book further addresses criticisms of Western and Anglophone bias around “white feminism” and the norm of white, male and heterosexual privilege.