Special Issue: Gender and Schooling in Australia (The Australian Educational Researcher)

It has been a long time coming but our Special Issue in The Australian Educational Researcher, ‘Gender and Schooling in Australia’, has finally been published (Vol 51, Issue 3).

Congratulations and thanks to those talented academics whose research has been published in this special issue; thank you for your hard but important work.

Deepest gratitude to the anonymous (but not unseen) peer reviewers who generously provided their time and expertise to review the manuscripts.

It was a real privilege to work with Susanne Gannon and Erika K Smith in guest editing this special issue.

As an early career researcher it is an honour to have worked with some of the giants of this field as authors, reviewers, or editors, I learnt so much working with you all!

Introduction to special issue

Gender and Schooling in Australia

Susanne Gannon, Leanne Higham & Erika K. Smith

Abstract: This special issue presents a collection of recent papers drawing on qualitative research in and about schooling in Australia and the ways in which gender-related issues in the broadest sense continue to shape people’s educational experiences. These papers from the present are positioned in relation to the long histories of policy and research attention to gender equity in Australian education. We set the context for work in the present by scanning the past, noting the ambitions, the gaps and the failures of earlier policies, and drawing attention to the quality and volume of research that has previously been undertaken in this area. We explore the current policy vacuum regarding gender to consider some of the pressures and complexities that have led to the erasure or avoidance of gender-related issues. Each of the papers that form this special issue demonstrate—despite different methods, theoretical frameworks, settings and participant cohorts—how stereotypes and limitations circulate in everyday life in schools and beyond them, and how these impact on people. They each explore from a different starting point how gender injustices are perpetuated and produced, in often subtle and nuanced ways that require concerted effort to unpack. They simultaneously offer insights into the critical and creative ways that young people and those around them are reconfiguring gender and seeking more hopeful and more equitable educational experiences and outcomes. Collectively, the papers that form this special issue advocate for policies and practices that embrace the complexities of young people's lives and are oriented towards inclusive and equitable educational environments.