A one-day seminar

19^th April, 10.30am-3.30pm

Run by the Education, Identities and Social Inclusion Research Group, Brunel University Continue Reading

Dear Friends,

I am delighted to report that, since starting the Project in May, the issue of Women and Gender Studies in schools seems to have taken root and got people talking. It wasn’t limited to the excellent feminist critic Bidisha mentioning us positively in The Guardian, either. You can find out more from my latest blog on the Huffington Post. It’s helpful to have a friendly corner of the media from which to discuss gender and schooling in a critical, independent way. Continue Reading

The labels swot, ear ’ole, boffin, keeno, geek and nerd resonate meaningfully across generations of school-goers and echo through the terrains of popular culture. Our Gender and Education viewpoint started life as a conversation about our own research into how such identities are imagined and lived. We wondered: Has ‘the rise of the nerd’ meant that being a ‘boffin’ at school has lost its stigma? Continue Reading

As a researcher, there are situations when some discussions with interviewees or colleagues start to tickle our brains and cry out for getting analysed and reanalysed. Continue Reading

This article in Gender and Education 27.3 was born out of a commitment to contribute to the United Nations Millennium Goals related to gender equality. The commitment was not only mine as author, but also that of the organisations which sponsored and supported the research. The South African President of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance in Johannesburg, the international network, Women Leading Education, and the University of Southampton all offered support. The number and range of organisations that helped evidences a fund of willingness to try to improve gender equality. I led the team from South Africa and the UK which undertook research in South Africa into how women became headteachers and how they lead their schools when appointed. The aim was to pilot a method of comparative research into women headteachers’ experience that could be used in other locations across the world. Continue Reading

For my PhD research on the Catholic mother-daughter relationship I decided to  turn the analytical lens on myself.  I discussed the idea with a friend, who suggested examining the mother-daughter relationship. I phoned my mother and asked her what she thought. Her reply was, “Wouldn’t you rather get married instead?”  This reply cemented the idea as it said so much about the life trajectory my mother wanted for me. Continue Reading

Following the intense scrutiny to which Islamic societies and cultures have been subjected in the recent past, I was intrigued by the excessive emphasis on the nexus between terrorism and Islam. In particular, I noticed the suggestion in the media on Islamic schools or madrasas as breeding grounds for terrorism, terrorist thought and ideology. What I found disturbing was the insinuation that Muslim children were indoctrinated with hatred for others, and consequently grew up to become terrorists. Two things piqued my curiosity— do Muslim girls not frequent these schools? and why haven’t there been as many cases of Muslim female terrorists if they, too, were being indoctrinated with hatred in these schools? I always suspected that something was amiss and it led me to wonder if these schools were open only to boys—was there any place for girls in Islamic education? Furthermore, why weren’t regions that don’t typically fall under the radar of scholarship or media attention vis-à- vis Islam such as Africa being examined to provide a holistic view of Islamic culture and practice? Continue Reading

This article developed from collaboration between the authors in late 2008 when Kate was a visiting researcher at the University of Limerick, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. At the same time the authors were collaborating in an eight-country study of the Women in Higher Education Management (WHEM) Network that was published in the UK and US in 2011 as Gender, Power and Management: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Higher Education (eds. Barbara Bagilhole and Kate White). Building on those collaborations, we have continued to analyse the Irish and Australian data and presented papers at conferences in Gothenburg (2010) and at Amsterdam, Ottawa and Melbourne (2011). The Irish/Australian comparison is particularly apposite in view of the use of Australian higher educational policy and practice as an exemplar by the Irish government. Continue Reading

Visit the conference website for further information