Gender Balance and Gender Bias in Education:International Perspectives

This book presents a compelling range of international research on the issues of gender balance and gender bias in education. The chapters draw on cutting edge work from the US, Latin America, the UK, Ireland and Africa, presenting readers with new insights into how educators and students often negotiate deeply ingrained prejudices that are expressed in gendered terms.

The book reflects research that draws on a range of methodologies, and both historical and contemporary education contexts are examined. Drawing on historical research, the book widens our understanding of gender issues in education, and provides chapters on physical activity for girls in nineteenth century America, and on the ‘patriarchal imperative’ in mission education in Africa in the nineteenth century. Turning to research on contemporary education settings, the book explores the global phenomenon of the feminisation of teaching. It also illustrates how teachers work in classrooms in which boys’ expressions of masculinities explicitly challenge school order, and looks at the performance of both masculinities and femininities in several education contexts. The book also includes absorbing work on the practices and processes that contribute to the gendering of digital technologies, and it demonstrates ways in which parents unwittingly accept the gendered management of internet ‘risk’ for their daughters.

This book was published as a special issue of Gender and Education.

Deirdre Raftery is the Deputy Head of the School of Education at University College Dublin, Ireland. She has published widely in the area of women’s history and the history of education. Books include Women and Learning in English Writing, 1600-1900; Emily Davies, Collected Letters; and Female Education in Ireland, 1700-1900: Minerva or Madonna?. She is an Honorary Life Member of Girton College Cambridge.

Maryann Valiulis is Director and Chair of the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies, and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her edited books include Gender and Power in Irish History; Gender and Sexuality in Modern Ireland and Women and Irish History.