Gender, policy, and educational change : shifting agendas in the UK and Europe

Gender equality has been a major educational theme for the past two decades and has become interwoven with other policy themes, including those of marketisation and managerialism. Contributors to this strong collection are key researchers in their fields and seek to address the following questions: * What patterns are discernible in the educational attainment of girls and boys over the past two decades? * To what extent are changes attributable to gender equality policies? * What form have gender equality policies taken in different parts of the UK? * What has been the impact of European equality policies? * How have gender equality policies been experienced by particular groups including pupils from ethnic minority and working-class backgrounds? This book aims to take an overall look at how significant have been the changes in experiences, aspirations and culture of girls and boys and male and female teachers. It explores how attempts to improve equal opportunities in education have fared and examines the tensions and contradications in recent policies. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 List of figures......Page 13 List of tables......Page 14 Notes on contributors......Page 16 Acknowledgements......Page 20 List of abbreviations......Page 21 Introduction: educational reforms and equal opportunities programmes......Page 24 Gender and educational reforms: the UK and European context......Page 40 Gender equality and schooling, education policy-making and feminist research in England and Wales in the 1990s......Page 42 Equal opportunities and educational reform in Scotland: the limits of liberalism......Page 60 Beyond one border: educational reforms and gender equality in Welsh schools......Page 78 Gender, educational reform and equality in Northern Ireland......Page 103 Mainstreaming European 'equal opportunities': marginalising UK training for women......Page 122 Structures and processes in schools and classrooms......Page 136 Gender and national curricula......Page 138 Equity, assessment and gender......Page 157 Gender in the classrooms of more and less 'effective' schools......Page 176 All change, no change: gendered regimes in the post-sixteen setting......Page 192 Delegation and the new managerialism......Page 212 Gendered governance: education reform and lay involvement in the local management of schools......Page 214 Women head teachers in Northern Ireland......Page 231 Teacher education policy and gender......Page 252 Groups at the margins......Page 266 Gender equality, the 'learning society' policies and community education......Page 268 Gender and exclusion from school......Page 280 Caring, consuming and choosing: parental choice policy for mothers of children with special educational needs......Page 296 Class, race and collective action......Page 308 Conclusion: gender, policy and educational change......Page 328 Index......Page 332 This book is edited collection of an chapters that looks at the developments that have taken place in recent years in gender policies. So many reforms have been made, yet often greater exclusion has been a result of these. How have gender issues affected educational policy and what have we learned? The contributors hope to provide answers. In this chapter we address a number of issues relating to gender and education policy-making: more specifically, the period of UK educational reform at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, its impact on gender equality and policy-making and feminist quandaries concerning researching gender. This book is an edited collection of chapters that aims to look at the developments that have taken place in recent years in gender policies