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The education gender gap is closing. Since the 1980s examination results have changed dramatically, as girls have "caught up" and, in some cases, overtaken boys. Through an analysis of the postwar transformation in British economic, social and cultural life, this important book provides valuable insights into how and why this unprecedented change has taken place.
In particular, the book focuses on the welfare state and the education reforms under Margaret Thatcher which encouraged this momentum for change despite her personal efforts to re-instil Victorian educational values. These reforms, the authors argue, coupled with the women's movement, re-shaped girls' and boys' identities and educational choices irrevocably, but not necessarily in the same or complementary ways.
Closing the Gender Gap will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students in education, sociology and gender studies.
List of contents
Preface. Abbreviations and Acronyms.
Part I: Refashioning Gender Relations. 1. Revisiting Gender in the 1990s.
2. Changing Gender Patterns in Education.
3. Challenging Victorian Values.
Part II: Social Policy and Education Reform. 4. Motherhood and Women's Work in the Welfare State.
5. Schooling, Teachers and Feminism.
6. Markets, Competition and Performance.
Part III: New Generations of Girls and Boys. 7. Schoolgirls and Social Change.
8. Schoolboys and Social Change.
9. Closing the Gender Gap in Education?.
Authors' Note on Further Reading.
References and Bibliography.
Index.
About the author
Madeleine Arnot is Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Jesus College.
Miriam David is Visiting Professorial Fellow at the London University Institute of Education.
Gaby Weiner is Professor of Teacher Education and Research Ume? University, Sweden.
Summary
aeo A comprehensive and up--to--date account of the developments in British education from 1945 to the present day. aeo Focuses on how and why the gender gap is closing in the British education system.
