Promoting gender equality in schools

Promoting equality and inclusion are generally seen to be part of the work of schools and other
educational bodies. There has been an important and significant focus on race equality over the
years, but an understanding of what the promotion of gender equality should mean and how to go
about doing this is less well developed. Here we offer some ideas for why this might be and
some practice ideas for strategies to promote gender equality.
In England, for instance, the gender equality duty has now been overtaken by the single equality
duty, but it is not yet well understood by teachers. Research by the UK Equalities and Human
Rights Commission suggests that in the UK the gender equality area is the equality challenge
with which schools and teachers feel least comfortable to take forward, when compared with
race and disability equality.

Are sex and gender still important in education?

For many people, one of the first ways we make sense of ourselves and others is whether we are
male or female biologically (i.e. what sex we are). This in turn is felt to inform the ways in
which we dress, act, talk, move and how we make sense of (and judge) others. Judith Butler talks
about gender performativity which is a useful concept for understanding how we and others
perform being a woman / man / girl / boy (our gender).
Sex and gender are often conflated but many would argue there is a difference between what
anatomical parts we have and the socially constructed ideas of what it is to be a man/boy and
what it is to a woman/girl. In many Northern contexts, at least, most can only occupy one or the
other position, whose boundaries are relatively narrow (just think of the way many young
children already see girls and boys as different and understand these two groups as being
different, having different skills and interests).
Most people, across the world, would acknowledge that whether someone is seen as being male
or female influences how we respond to them. There is also a commonly-held perception that
differences between boys and girls can be, at least in part, explained by differences in their
physiologies (including how their brains work) think of Men are from Mars, Women are from
Venus type arguments. Thus, boys are assumed to be more inclined to the sciences, girls to
humanities.
At the same time, there is also a sense that we have reached the age of gender equality (a strong
rhetoric in Scandinavian countries especially) and that in many societies anyone can do and
become anything they want (if they put their minds to it). These ideas are captured in what has
been variously called top girl (by Angela McRobbie), future girl (by Anita Harris: hyperlink
to book) or neoliberal girl power (by Claire Charles). These ideas are circulating strongly in
Northern contexts but also mirrored in the international development objectives which see
empowering women as being central to development.
This poses a dilemma for people working in education. On the one hand, we know that whether
you understand yourself and are seen by others as female or male shapes how you experience the
world, interact with it and your future (women still earn less than men, still carry the greater
domestic burden etc.). While at the same time there is a sense that being female does not
disadvantage you in any way, in fact, you are likely to do better, as the continued alarm about
boys under-achievement attests to.
Over the last decade in England, for instance, there has been some focus on gender within
policy and practice but it has mainly focused on raising boys achievement and getting girls to
study maths and science. This has in part led to an over-emphasis on differences between
students based on their sex or perceived gender.
So what does the promotion of gender equality mean?
What might educational institutions need to think further about to create spaces which promote
(gender) equality?

Amanda Keddie (Griffith University, Australia) and UK colleagues who

led the The No Outsiders action research project have all sought to examine how understandings
of gender equality and sexuality equality can be troubled and alternative understandings of
gender facilitated. Here, the work has explored how using teachers critical reflexivity and by
provoking conversations, awareness of local gender inequality can be raised and
understandings challenged.
 The social theorist Nancy Fraser offers another way of thinking how to
develop a set of strategies for promoting gender equality. Fraser argues that socio-economic and
cultural injustices always need to be considered together. She calls for a politics of redistribution
and recognition. The focus should be on restructuring the underlying systems which result in
inequality alongside remedies problematising current ways of thinking narrowly about
masculinity and femininity and promoting other ways of being. Thus, drawing on Frasers work,
educational institutions such as schools could do the several things:

Ensure equal pay and fair representation of men and women at all levels across the school
(male teaching assistants, female head teachers and other senior managers).
Develop initiatives that promote young women to follow post-compulsory education and
career trajectories which will facilitate higher earnings in the future.
Identify who is becoming dis-engaged from education and is likely to do less well than
hoped and develop support strategies to tackle this.
Challenge stereotypical, either/or understandings of what it means to be male and female
across the whole school community (parents/carers, staff, students).
Have clear and consistently followed procedures for identifying / reporting sexual
bullying and violence against women and girls incidents.

In order to do the above though, school communities need the support and training to engage
with the concept of gender and reflect on how imbued our day-to-day reflections and actions are
with a relatively narrow understanding of sex and gender, and to see and appreciate the many
ways gender inequality is reinforced at so many levels throughout our educational spaces.
Useful links
Keddie, A. (2005) A framework for gender justice: Evaluating the transformative capacities of
three key Australian schooling initiatives, The Australian Educational Researcher, 32(3): 83-
102: In this paper Amanda Keddie draws on Nancy Frasers work to develop a framework of
transformative justice, which she uses to assess three relatively recent initiatives in Australian
schools to address social and gender equality.
Maxwell, C., Chase, C., Warwick, I., Aggleton, P. and Wharf, H. (2010) Freedom to achieve.
Preventing violence, promoting equality: A whole school approach. London: Womenkind
Worldwide. Accessible under UK Education Research: This report reviews key literature on
promoting gender equality and challenging violence against women and girls with young people
and charts the experiences of five schools in England and Wales who over a two-year period
attempted to develop a whole school approach to the promotion of gender equality. It
concludes by setting out key steps any schools could take to create spaces for gender equality.
UNESCO Gender Equality Division website: This website has numerous resources to support the
development of gender-specific programmes and gender mainstreaming developed across
UNESCOs five areas of work including Education.
Guidance is available on the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission website: This website
offers educational institutions guidance on adhering to the New Equalities Act (now law in
England, Scotland and Wales).
Further reading
Myers, K. and Taylor, H. with Adler, S. and Leonard, D. (eds) (2007) Genderwatch: Still
watching. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books: This is a comprehensive guide which examines all
aspects of schooling and how gender shapes knowledges and practices within these
spaces. Drawing on research to pose challenging questions, it offers those working in and with
schools the resources to understand current practices and ways to make schooling more gender
equitable.
Nayler, J.M. and Keddie, A. (2007) Focusing the gaze: Teacher interrogation of
practice, International Journal of Inclusive Education,11(2): 199-214: Using the experiences
and reflections of three Australian teachers, this paper examines how an understanding of their
own histories and positions, as well as an interrogation of practices within schools enables these
teachers to engage a politics of resistance around (gender) inequality.
Skelton, C. and Francis, B. (2009) Feminism and the schooling scandal. Abingdon:
Routledge: A comprehensive review of research and theory (as well as a call to action) around
gender (alongside other forms of inequality) within schooling.

Page author: Claire Maxwell

Updated: 15th January 2013

One thought on Promoting gender equality in schools

1. color palette says:

February 2, 2016 at 12:28 pm

For women and those who are a part of the feminist movement, we need to understand that
we as a group have already won the gender war, both educationally and now in many ways
economically. We are taking great leads in education and thought of very incorrectly by
society as now superior to our Male peers. The feminist movement is still waging a battle for
equal wages in total earnings and for equal representation in the workplace. However,
those vain battles when seen correctly are red herrings that will never be fulfilled using
numbers alone. Here are some reasons why.
1. The total wages earned by men are made up of many older Males who have risen to
higher positions in the past, over time and are presently earning more as a result. This is
coupled by the still mother position of Females in caring for children.
2. We are paying out much money to some, very few Males who are in very short-term fields
of work for which women are not able to pursue.
3. As women we are given sufficient love, honor, and respect as a group by society, so we
are not as driven to continually reach into higher fields of accomplishment to maintain love
and honor from society. This creates only an appearance of less adequate representation in
higher areas. We are taking over many professional, managerial, and other mid-level areas
and have a full sense of fulfillment. We are rapidly taking over those areas from our Male
peers who are unable to match the numbers and the skills of Female workers in those areas.
For this reason, the numbers of Females in those seemingly vacant, higher corporate and
technical areas are falsely seen as a kind of glass ceiling. Young women are now earning
more than than our young Male peers. This is due to a growing educational and skill
superiority we are rapidly obtaining over our Male peers.
4. Only a very few of our Male peers are given sufficient stability, knowledge, and skills along
with more support to continually strive to reach into higher areas of income and control.
However, this is due to the continual need facing all Males of receiving love and honor being
bestowed only on condition of some achievement, status, or income. For those very few
Males, achievement in school and the workplace in those areas creates a never-ending drive
to achieve in higher areas of study and power. Only a relatively very few Males are able to
reach into those high areas, and this number is slowly decreasing and being replaced by
Female peers.
We have won the battle for gender equality, have taken over in many fields, and are very
slowly by numbers alone reaching even into higher areas of power and control. We must
now see and appreciate what this false gender war is doing to the many many other,
wonderful boys and men who are not given the support, which is given to that very small
minority of boys and men in society. We must appreciate how socially we have benefited
from more correct care and support from a young age through adulthood by those many
other boys and men, enabling us to take this lead over our Male peers. We must remove the
false idea we are somehow simply smarter or have worked harder. This will destroy
boys/men; then us as women; and finally society.
To those who believe feminism is responsible for boys and men falling behind
To a growing degree, the feminist movement and success of women is creating increasingly
more abrasiveness by a collectively allowed false belief that girls and women are more
intelligent. This is creating a kind of synergy of more public ridicule and patronization of boys
and men by parents, teachers, the media, and now many girls and women who falsely
believe this ridicule is legitimate. This is not only wrong but also a very dangerous avenue of
feelings that are rapidly taking its toll upon our many (so far so kind) Male peers who are
already feeling very low in esteem and are experiencing very low feelings of self-worth. We
must stop this and see how environmental and social treatment of Male infants through
adulthood is creating this change in society.
However, the problem of the Male Crisis must not be blamed upon the feminist movement.
The problem has been created from a very harsh collision between our now very important,
information age age and- the very archaic and harsh treatment parents, teachers, and others
are still giving Male infants, young Males, and men, all to make them tough. To understand
this, we must see how all of us are very equal but greatly affected by our individual
environments and differential treatment. Men must see how the very harsh treatment given
them from infancy and lack of support and care has created the growing Male Crisis and
now, the rapidly changing power structure greatly favoring girls and women.
The parents, teachers, peers, and the media which are greatly affecting boys and men need
to understand that it is not genetics. Boys and men are not just this way or that way. It is
the very incorrect treatment they have been given by society and is continued using the very
horrible, false belief in genetically permanent characteristics. By maintaining this false belief,
society will continue to force the great majority of boys and men into very inferior mental,
emotional, social, academic, and socioeconomic straits. We cannot allow this to happen, for
this will come back with much much negative reactions by those presently good boys and
men, toward women and then destroy society. We need to remove this very false belief of
genetics from society and help Male infants and Male peers have the same very kind,
supportive, caring treatment that is enabling girls and women to do much better in the
information age. We must remove our genetics models and help all children benefit from the
more correct treatment that is enabling girls and women to do much better in society.