Feminisms in Education: An Introduction

Gaby Weiner presents an overview of recent developments in feminist educational thinking and practice in Britain, exploring the ethical and professional challenges which now face feminist teachers and educators.

The main aim of the text is to introduce issues relating to gender, curriculum, pedagogy and practice. It also affirms the good news of the transformative powers of feminist consciousness as well as the bad news of social inequality. The author relates feminist thinking and practice to her own autobiographical experiences, to research and practitioner perspectives on gender, and to a variety of teacher and policy gender initiatives. She examines how the curriculum is implicated in the construction of gender relations, for example, in defining gender appropriate behaviour and/or in shaping perceptions of the appropriate place for girls and women in the family, school and employment. Throughout, she offers suggestions for feminist practice and the book concludes with specific proposals for developing educational politics out of poststructural feminism, and for creating a feminist praxis as a basis for feminist action in education.