This paper starts from the idea that children learn and construct gendered identities within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice, including peer communities. The data presented come from an ESRC-funded study of tomboy identities, which investigated the enabling and constraining factors for girls in taking up and maintaining…

The article uses sociolinguistic and ethnographic methods and Black feminist theory to explore the classroom interactions of Pam and Natonya, two Black young females, during one event in a required high school British literature classroom. The event is presented as a telling case to explore gendered and racial complexities facing young Black…

This collection brings together many of the world's leading sociologists of education to explore and address key issues and concerns within the discipline. The thirty-seven newly commissioned chapters draw upon theory and research to provide new accounts of contemporary educational processes, global trends, and changing and enduring forms of…

The AIDS epidemic presents a complex of issues that require global answers, involving entire societies. The only sustainable solution is to include all sectors of society in a multidisciplinary collaboration, within which the formal education system plays a key role in delivering a comprehensive response to the disease at the national level.…

This paper reports on strategies employed by Australian universities to provide support and encouragement for female students in the area of computing. National objectives were set to improve the balance of women in higher education courses, with an emphasis on research and higher degrees and non-traditional courses for female. A "Women in…

While rhetoric is conventionally associated with argumentation and discussions of discrete language forms (such as pronouns) which are usually housed in lingustics, clearly there are forms of rhetoric that are not obviously propositional. Moreover, sometimes very small language units can be deployed to great persuasive effect. Muriel Rukeyser's…

A course in the honors program (a sophomore level social science seminar) at Millikin University offers an interdisciplinary approach to communication and sexuality, functions as a course in the Gender Studies Minor curriculum, and provides a needed source of sex education for the campus. The purpose of the course is to facilitate communication…

This paper explores how white male adolescents construct themselves and the "other" within the context of reading and responding to multicultural literature. The purpose of the paper is not to derive a theory of adolescent male gender construction, but to see how gender is put into discourse and how white males appropriate those discourses to…

This paper discusses the marginalization of the early years of schooling in Australian national gender reform programs. Focusing on an action research project that addressed gender issues in preschool through grade three classes, the paper outlines the issues that teachers faced, the theoretical framework that they used, and the strategies that…

Patricia Thompson, a women's studies educator, has in her previous writing proposed the Hestian/Hermean paradigm to distinguish dual systems of action that operate independently in the private, domestic (Hestian) sphere and the public, civic (Hermean) sphere. Based on her concept, this paper suggests that early childhood education might also be…

This handbook arose from a project that was designed to examine the role that science education plays in the under-representation of women in science. It is based on case studies of introductory science classes, surveys of syllabi and textbooks used in science classrooms, a survey of the literature on the history of women in science and current…

This paper reviews research concerning women's negative or ambivalent attitude toward science and how that attitude is often reinforced by teachers. It explores prescriptions for teachers, students, and parents in an attempt to remedy this classroom dilemma. Research concerning the reason why many women have negative or ambivalent attitudes toward…

A multicultural literature course at Loyola Marymount University (California) was designed to complicate ideas of culture with gender issues and explored a common but largely unexplored phenomenon--writers who write outside their own personal backgrounds and identities. The course drew from research on "women's way of knowing" and…

A major tenet of feminist rhetorical theory is that there exists a "women's way" of writing. At the same time, much writing deals with the strong shift in the relationship between theory and practice in the fields of literature, composition, and cultural rhetoric. A study examined the intersection of genre and gender theory with the…

This paper presents an analysis of the ecological and psychological transitions women undergo as they consider leaving the classroom for an administrative position. The report focuses on the perceptions and aspirations of women teachers who have decided to pursue positional leadership and who anticipate a career move within 2 years. For the study,…