Gaby Weiner, Chair of the Association since 2009, formally stepped down from her position on Thursday evening along with former Chair and Executive Member Carolyn Jackson. Both were presented with gifts and lifetime memberships by Gaby’s successor, Gabrielle Ivinson at a reception hosted by the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at this year’s interim conference.

We wish Carolyn, Gaby and Alexandra Allan (who has also left the Executive) the best of luck.

A number of new initiatives have recently been launched by the government’s equality group. These campaigns have also resulted in the development of a number of new resources that can be used in schools to generate discussion surrounding issues of gender and education. The two campaigns that have been publicised most widely in the Equality Group’s newsletter relate to teenage relationship abuse and body image. Read the full story

Reports from across the world last week were claiming that we are no longer facing a gender gap but rather a gender chasm. Drawing on a new ‘gender gap’report these articles claim that even though a number of countries see more young women going to university than young men, it is men who tend to end up faring better in employment (rising to higher levels of seniority and earning more than their female counterparts). Read the full story

‘Women’s rights tend to be at best on the margins, and actually we are over 50% of the population. It’s not just gender blind. I’d say it’s actually gender regressive’ (Ceri Goddard, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society)

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This month the UK newspapers have been awash with stories about the (supposedly) ever-decreasing ‘gender gap’. Indeed, several key reports relating to equalities issues have been released in the past month, all of which have been discussed at great length in the British media. Of greatest international significance, perhaps, have been the reports surrounding the progress made against the millennium development goals (a set of goals which were proposed by world leaders back in the year 2000 and were revisited last month as these leaders returned to New York for the UN summit, Singer 2010). Although a number of scholars have pointed to the fact that the success of achieving these goals has largely been attributable to moving the goalposts, the positive news reported last week was that gender parity in education was being achieved and in ways which had substantial effects upon the ability to reach other goals (e.g. infant mortality rates). Read the full story

This summer has seen a number of feminist scholars give key note speeches relating to issues of gender and education at a range of academic conference. Fitting in with the theme ‘Education and Cultural Change’ Professor Floya Anthias from Roehampton University was invited to reflect on issues of ‘identity, belonging and culture in the modern era’ at the European Conference on Education Research. This year the conference was held in Helsinki, Finland. Professor Anthias delivered a paper titled: ‘Intersections and translocations:new paradigms for thinking about identities and inequalities’ . The talk attracted a large audience and continued to be debated well into the evening social event. An abstract for the speech and a digital recording can be found on the European Education Research Association website. Read the full story

This month has seen the release of the hotly debated film Made in Dagenham. This is a film which recalls the events surrounding the 1968 strike by the women sewing machinists at the Ford plant in Dagenham, London. The film was produced by Stephen Wooley and Elizabeth Karlsen in conjunction with BBC films and was directed by Nigel Cole (also known for his direction of the popular film ‘Calendar Girls’). At a recent London Feminist Network screening of the film, the film’s producers Wooley and Karlsen claim that the original idea for the film was first developed over four years ago. However, they explain that the film was unsuccessful in gaining funding at this time because there appeared to be very little interest in feminism or on issues relating to equal pay. Read the full story

The Gender and Education Association would like to announce that the 8th International Gender and Education Conference will be held in the Graduate School of Education at Exeter University from 27th-30th April 2011. Read the full story