Perspectives and Debates Since the 1970s

Abstract

Gender was largely ignored in policy and practice before the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. During the period covered in this chapter, however, the pendulum swung from research concerned to map the politics of the hitherto largely absent female experience of education. The slow death of British heavy industry and consequent unemployment impacted differently on females and males, and while the attainment of all pupils steadily rose, concern escalated about male ‘underachievement’ because examination results, especially at 16, indicated that boys had fallen behind girls in this measure of success. From the mid-1990s on, the conception grew that something must be done to improve the lot of boys. On the other hand, testimonies of sexual violence and abuse in schools and universities highlighted a culture of sexual harassment, abuse, misogyny and assault. Earlier studies identified this state of affairs, led often by feminists and pro-feminists who suggested rethinking traditional masculinities offered a space for change, while highlighting the intersectionality of disadvantage.

Apart from one or two women teachers, no one at Cato Park thought it was odd that ‘hard men’ like Dave felt more at home than nice, quiet girls like Carol Lamb. Elsewhere, educationists were beginning to recognize that girls’ experiences of education are different from boys, and that strange distinctions, based on gender, are common in all types of school from Siberia to Surrey, but the news had not yet filtered down to Morriston teachers, who brushed aside gender in the same way as race , by claiming to treat all pupils alike. They did not entirely convince the parents that everyone was equal, for some of them muttered about ‘class distinction’, or clever lads ‘getting the lion’s share’. Some families thought lads like Dave had problems largely because they were in the lower band.

—Julia Stanley, Marks on the Memory: Experiencing School, 1989, 58