Search

The present paper explores the conceptual limitations of the bully discourses that ground UK anti-bullying policy frameworks and psychological research literatures on school bullying, suggesting they largely ignore gender, (hetero)sexuality and the social, cultural and subjective dynamics of conflict and aggression among teen-aged girls. To explore the limitations of bully discourses in practice, the paper draws on a pilot, interview-based study of girls' experiences of aggression and bullying, illustrating how friendships and conflicts among the girls are thoroughly heterosexualized, en-cultured and classed. Drawing on girls and parent interview narratives, I also trace some of the effects of bully discourses set in motion in schools to intervene into conflicts among girls. I suggest these practices miss the complexity of the dynamics at play among girls and also neglect the power relations of parenting, ethnicity, class and school choice, which can inform how, why and when bullying discourses are mobilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of feminist pasts has been largely ignored in the history of education. This paper suggests that the historical sociology of Olive Banks provides fresh starting points for future research exploring the relationship between the history of social and political movements and a reassessment of contemporary and historical forms of 'radical education.' The article proceeds to use group biography to explore a municipal socialism that has been over-ridden in historical memory by the classic political histories that take the view from Westminster and Whitehall. In so doing it seeks to show the contribution of six educator activists who were participants in the making of a metropolitan political elite emerging from the association between feminism, socialism and the labour and trade union movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that examinations have a complex role in creating and defining gender differences in performance in public examinations. To illustrate this argument three aspects of examining are reviewed: styles of examinations and how they define achievement; coursework and the role it plays in contributing to gender differences in performance; and tiered entry systems in examinations and how they provide unequal opportunities for boys and girls to be successful. It presents the context in which research into gender, achievement and examining is now located by initially reviewing the recent media hype around gender and achievement. It then takes an historical look at gender and achievement and goes on to describe new gender stereotypes that influence current understandings of boys' and girls' achievement. There is much information that is ‘hidden’ behind examination results as they are commonly reported. This hidden information has more to do with how differences in performance are obtained, how subjects are assessed and how we choose to assess students. How all this interacts with students' perceptions and expectations alongside those of their teachers must impact on how boys and girls perform in examinations. This ‘hidden’ information has vital implications for whom we perceive to be under or overachieving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic staff in universities continue to be male dominated, particularly at the higher levels, despite the introduction by many of equal opportunities (EO) policies. This paper draws on data from a qualitative research study undertaken in an old (pre-1992) UK university. The main aim of the study was to measure the impact of gender issues on the university campus, an important part of which was the issue of the effectiveness of its EO policies. Using a theoretical lens of hegemony, this paper develops an account of the adapting responses in the academy to the perceived demands of EO. It attempts to categorise these responses into four types: three different types of accommodation, and one of more overt resistance. It is not claimed that these are mutually exclusive, as any one academic may use different responses at different times, but it is proposed that they go some way to explaining the relative ineffectiveness of EO policies in an academic setting, and the maintenance of male dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the gender gap at GCSE in eight contrasting English secondary schools, and discusses the reality and rhetoric of classroom interactions, focusing on the views of teaching staff, the perspectives of Year 11 students, and observations of teacher--student, interactions in the classroom. In an earlier paper (British Journal of Sociology of Education, 17 (3)), the authors examined the extent to which there was less positive teacher-support for the learning of boys than for the learning of girls, and this issue is reviewed in differing school contexts. Research in this broader context suggests that most teachers believe that they give equal treatment to girls and to boys, particularly in support of their learning, but focus group interviews with students and classroom observation suggest that this is rarely achieved; in most schools, boys appear to dominate certain classroom interactions, while girls participate more in teacher--student interactions which support learning. If the underachievement of some boys is to be addressed successfully, these patterns of interaction need to be challenged, to enable boys to begin to develop the very learning strategies which many girls employ effectively to enable them to learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores, through the life histories of a group of first and second generation immigrant pupils from the 'Asian' and 'African' diasporas, the complex ways in which 'black' identities have evolved in British society over the past two decades. The phrase 'black identities' is used here not as a racially descriptive term but rather as a signifier of ethnic 'otherness'; to make distinct (from white society) and, at the same time, to unify the experiences of disparate groups of ethnic minority groups as marginals within metropolitan societies. Charting the life histories of a group of students in an inner-city comprehensive school in their own collective and individual voices, the paper provides a glimpse of their perceptions of their status as citizens, their views on cultural identity, and their dreams, aspirations, hopes and desires as young people growing up in contemporary British society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist scholarship and campaigning have been notably successful in recent years in putting the concept of the unpaid carer onto the public agenda. The caring that women do as a feature of paid work, however, has proved a more intractable topic. This paper argues that masculinist visions gender the concepts of bureaucracy and profession. dichotomizing competence and care, and masking both the reality and the potential of public carework. The paper proposes a distinction between caregiving, carework and professional care. It then develops an analysis of professional care by reference to a recent campaign by the leading nurses' organization in the UK, seeking to highlight the worth of nursing work. It notes that the carework discussion has barely any echo in the debate about the 'new managerialism' in the public sector and argues that a critical understanding of the centrality of binary gendered thought is crucial to a constructive critique of today's emphasis on bringing health care into the market-place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on historical data largely relating to Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), this article examines the early professionalisation of accountancy as a gendered process. Mobilising Acker's (1990) theory of the ideal worker, this article highlights articulations of an ideal professional accountant, coded as male and masculine in the gendering of professional skills and knowledge, image management, networking and social class. Additionally, social changes such as WW1 reshaped the masculine nature of the ideal professional accountant in PwC, emphasising a militaristic masculinity, to support the war effort. While women were temporarily employed in accountancy clerical jobs in wartime, this does not appear to have re-gendered PwC as an organisation inclusive of femininity and women. However, it is noted that some middle-class women challenged exclusionary professional practices within accountancy. The implications of the gendered aspects of the professionalisation of accountancy are discussed throughout the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who financed the great expansion of the Victorian equity market, and what attracted them to invest? Using data on 453 firm-years and over 172,000 shareholders, we find that the largest providers of capital were rentiers, men with no formal occupation who relied on investment income. We also see a substantial growth in women investors as time progressed. In terms of clientele effects, we find that rentiers invested in large firms, whilst businessmen were the venture capitalists of young, regional enterprises. Women and the middle classes preferred safe investments, whilst financiers and institutional investors were speculators in foreign companies. Our results may help to explain the growth of new types of assets catering for particular clienteles, and the development of managerial policies on dividends and share issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the British Civil Service, male workers were perceived more ‘valuable’ by managers owing to their supposed higher productivity and skills. This restricted women’s access to higher grade employment, and placed them on lower and different scales to their male colleagues. Yet women worked alongside men, both in the pre-war, wartime and interwar periods. Through examining the personnel practices of Britain’s largest Civil Service department – the Post Office – this article highlights the vital importance of this institution, and its women workers, to the nation’s war and reconstruction efforts. The inextricable connection between the Post Office and its main funder – the Treasury – brought tensions concerning the provision of labour, together with the short-term and long-term position of women in the department. When the First World War got underway, women’s vital contribution to the department’s efforts became apparent. Thus, when victory was in sight, Post Office managers made women a central component to their post-war plan, although initially it did not include a commitment to address the ubiquitous inequalities affecting male and female opportunity in the department. Yet the Post Office’s commitment to explicitly include women in its post-war plan, primarily owing to the shortage of suitably qualified men, placed it at the cutting edge in renegotiating with the government the position of women in the post-war labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: the belief that women and science, including mathematics and medicine, are incompatible has had a long and complex history and still often works to exclude women from and/or marginalise them in science. Purpose: this article will seek to explore gender and educational achievement through investigating how such gendered presumptions have persisted at various levels of science, despite perceptions of science itself changing over time and scientific studies expanding, differentiating and becoming professionalized. In particular, after a brief discussion of the historical debates on the provenance and lasting recurrence of gendered assumptions in science, it will try to discover how these prejudices affected the education of girls and women in England from c.1910 to c. 1939 and then, to widen the picture, make some comparison with the USA in the same period, although, necessarily in an article of this length, this analysis will be somewhat cursory. It will then bring the history up-to-date by examining the situation in England today. Sources of evidence:the article will proceed by using extensive local sources in case study research on Birmingham, by then the second largest English city. The comparisons with the situation in the USA in the same period and the examination of the present situation will be based largely on secondary sources. Main argument: factors of location, family background, supportive networks and greater educational, political and employment rights will be shown to have allowed some women to break through the barriers that hindered many from accessing or rising in science. Thus, it will be seen through the Birmingham example that there was a growing yet limited field of scientific practice for women, ordered by a gendered philosophy which routed them into specific areas. This picture was further permeated by class, wealth, identity, contacts, networks and location albeit this was modified by the scholarship system. Comparisons with the USA show that similar factors were present there, albeit in a different context. Twenty-first century sources indicate that on the one hand there is still gendered access and progress for females in science in England yet, on the other hand, there have been, and are at present, a number of initiatives seeking to overcome this. Conclusion: Even today, therefore, whatever sciences females do is affected by underlying gendered assumptions and structural power relationships which need to be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study is concerned with experiences of ethnic identity amongst a group of three-year-old and four-year-old children, four-fifths of whom are of Pakistani heritage and the remainder of white indigenous heritage. Focused on a nursery school in the United Kingdom, the study explores the relationship between the individual and the social and cultural, initially in the home and then as the children start nursery school. An ethnographic approach is used to record the children's daily experiences and relationships as contexts where they reveal, shape and reshape who they are. Children's ethnic identities are explored in relation to boundaries where different communities of practice collide, alongside other aspects such as gender and sexuality and under the influence of factors such as power and religion. What appears to emerge is a sense of ethnic identity as social practice and performance rather than as the result of maturation or of internal cognitive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of music in the workplace is a neglected area of study. This article explores the policies towards music in the paternalist Rowntree and Cadbury confectionery factories from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. We argue that the two firms were pioneering in their early use of music before becoming key players in the industrial welfare movement following the First World War. The broadcasting of music by Rowntree and Cadbury in the mid to late twentieth century is then placed in the context of a widespread adoption of tannoyed music in factories. We argue that music was employed as a means of easing the monotony of factory work whilst simultaneously aiming to improve productivity levels. However, as we demonstrate through oral history, women workers experienced music in ways not always in tune with management objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latin American community in the UK is denied access to services and decent jobs by a combination of restrictive immigration laws, language problems, low wages, prejudice and discrimination, rendering them an impoverished community. This has a disproportionate effect on women, for whom it is a continuous cycle that is difficult to break. This article discusses how marginalisation affects Latin American women migrants, restricting their ability to meet their practical gender needs. The article then examines a community project working with women to overcome discrimination, identifying and achieving both practical gender needs and strategic gender interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a potentially powerful tool for progress on development and human rights. Women's human rights activists should recognise and build on the political will mobilised around the MDGs. However, the MDGs reflect problems in the dominant development approach. They seek to use women in their existing social roles to ‘deliver’ other aims, and do not address the need to eradicate gender inequality, resulting in lack of commitment to address key issues for women, including gender-based violence. There are further problems with the MDGs' indicators, analytical approach, and accountability mechanisms. The MDGs should be reframed as human rights obligations. To this end, links should be fostered between the 2005 reviews of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and progress on the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews current interpretations of Labour's education policy in relation to gender. Such interpretations see the marginalisation of gender equality in mainstream educational policy as a result of the discursive shift from egalitarianism to that of performativity. Performativity in the school context is shown to have contradictory elements ranging from an increased feminisation of teaching and the (re)masculinisation of schooling. Also, whilst underachievement is defined as 'the problem of boys', the production of hierarchical masculinities and 'laddishness' by marketised schools is ignored. The policy shift towards performativity also masks girls' exclusion and the disadvantages working-class girls face within the education system. The rhetoric of gender equality, although stronger in the field of post-16 training and employment, is no less contradictory. The effects of New Labour are found in the aggravation of social class divisions within gender categories and the spiralling differences between male and female paths. Gender equality ideals in education are therefore shown to have a far more complex relationship to New Labour politics than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the shift in views of virtue in eighteenth-century Britain as the emerging middle-class attempted to legitimize commerce and forge a broader concept of citizenship. I illustrate how middle-class values were sanctioned, in part, by relocating the source of civic virtue from the public to the domestic or private sphere. During this transition, women came to be seen as the "civilizing" agents of society, and I demonstrate how this new ethical rote prescribed for them was reflected and instantiated in eighteenth-century culture through specific pedagogical practices. By analyzing eighteenth-century conceptions of civic virtue in terms of how they were implicated in specific historical configurations of gender and class, I illustrate the need for further studies that approach ethics as a contingent, unstable category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the differential achievements of girl and boys at general certificate of secondary education (GCSE) over the four years 1991-94, in the context of one Suffolk, Great Britain comprehensive school. The article also attempts to analyze, through questionnaire and interview with students, teachers and parents, some of the factors contributing to such differences. The years since the inception of GCSE have seen an increasing concern with the differences in achievement between boys and girls in 16+ examinations. A number of factors may be seen as contributing to these underlying differences and to the changing trends apparent since the late 1980s. Underperformance by boys may be linked to disenchantment and the perceived inevitability of unemployment as conventional work opportunities have been reduced through deindustrialization and tertiarization of the labor market. The changing relationship between the relative attainments of girls and boys has significant implications for theory as well as for more substantive understandings of school effectiveness and classroom practice. The article authors' intention is to provide some initial insights into the situation through an intensive study.

The article examines the gender relations in employment. It throws light on gender problems in employment as one of the fastest changing areas of social change in both Great Britain and the rest of Europe, and face even greater changes as there is closer integration in the European Commission (EC) and as the organization of employment relations is restructured. It reports that there has been an enormous increase in the extent of women's paid employment in the Great Britain and much of the rest of the EC, there has only been a very slight closing of the equity gap between men and women in employment in these countries. The main focus of the article is on Great Britain as a member state of the EC, with some reference to other EC and other European countries. It is divided into two sections: the first deals with the substantive points of change, the second focuses on the theoretical issues involved. The dramatic increase of women's paid employment in Great Britain, which is common to most Western European countries over the last two decades has been emphasized.