As GEA policy officer, I was interested to have the chance to interview Professor Sir Adrian Smith, a very eminent mathematician and former Principal of Queen Mary University of London, on how the current UK Government is approaching policies on higher education and gender. Sir Adrian is the UK Government Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)’ champion for equalities and diversities. He is keen to advance women’s position in universities amongst other inequalities. Read the full story

Given the huge furore when David Willetts, the UK Government Minister for Universities and Science, stated in a public speech in April 2011 that ‘feminism had trumped egalitarianism’ and university-educated women were to blame for taking working class men’s jobs in January 2012, I went in search of his book The Pinch. Read the full story

The co-authors of this article have been working together in Sweden (Elisabet Öhrn & Gaby Weiner) and in Scotland (Gaby Weiner & Joan Forbes) for a number of years. The idea for this policy study piece grew from involvement in a project on social and other capitals in independent schooling in Scotland. Gender was found to be significant in/through which capitals resources worked. One school exhibited a ‘traditional’ gender regime, exemplified in its privileging of boys’ sport, boys’ overall confidence and apparent lack of gender awareness among staff; another had an explicit discourse of girls’ high academic achievement and aspiration; a third school encouraged newer, more urbane and ‘sensitive’ forms of middle class masculinities alongside traditional forms of masculinity. We were interested in knowing more about the Scottish gender policy context for that study and how it compared to that of Sweden – another relatively small country on the periphery of Europe. Read the full story

Is anyone else as sick to death as I am about the reportage of the recent disturbances in London and other English cities? Read the full story

The Third Gender and Education Association Policy Report (July 2011) Read the full story

It is most remarkable that neither the Sutton Trust nor the media have noticed changing forms of inequality in access to elite universities over the last 30 years. Whilst it is true that access to Oxbridge remains highly privileged as the recent Guardian article suggests, there is a major change that has been overlooked. 2 of the 5 schools mentioned in your report have co-educational sixth forms, and a third is a girls’ school. Only two schools are single sex boys’ schools (Eton and St Pauls). Relatively equal numbers of boys and girls now access higher education, including Oxbridge and indeed girls slightly outperform boys in degree results overall. It is strange indeed that changing forms of gender equality in education are not celebrated in the rush to try to get poor or disadvantaged students into the elite universities. This is being encouraged in last week’s white paper: HE: putting students at the heart of the system. What a pity attention is not focused on trying to change the culture of the political elites who still maintain their male privilege, and continue to exclude not only the poor and disadvantaged but their middle class sisters in the higher echelons, despite their academic achievements.

Miriam David, GEA Executive

Whilst I am always happy to see critical discussion on the role of sex and relationship education in schools and youth centres, worryingly, this week saw a new amendment narrowly passed in the UK Commons. Read the full story

The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has a statutory remit ‘to promote and monitor human rights; and to protect, enforce and promote equality across the nine “protected” grounds – age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership, sexual orientation and gender reassignment’. According to the Commission, a survey carried out by it in 2007 showed that discrimination and disadvantage are still common across Britain. So EHRC states: ‘We don’t all have equal chances in life and some forms of discrimination are complex and deep-rooted. Sometimes people choose to ignore the rights of others even when this is against the law. This is why the Equality and Human Rights Commission is here’. Read the full story

The Second Gender and Education Association Policy Report (March 2011)

Alison Wolf’s report on education for 14-19 year olds, commissioned by the English Government in Autumn 2010, has received rapturous acclaim in the media, policy and government circles. For example, the Guardian’s editorial on March 4^th 2011 was entitled FE colleges. Who’s Afraid of Alison Wolf? It argued that Wolf ‘has blown a gale through the cosy consensus. She understands that overly involved employers will grab subsidies for specific training that they would anyway have had to provide.’ And her recommendations are commended for their ‘acuity’. Read the full story

‘Clinton is proving that feminist foreign policy is possible – and works’ so headlines an article in the Guardian in which Madeleine Bunting argues that Hilary Clinton is building her political foreign policy on a solid 1970s feminist mantra that ‘Transformation in the role of women is that last great impediment to universal progress.’ Clinton has proclaimed that ‘the rights of women and girls are now core to US foreign policy’ and Bunting draws attention to the 450 mentions of this ‘signature issue’ in the first five months of Clinton’s office.  Clinton argues that ‘the empowerment, protect and protection of women and girls is vital to the long-term security of the US’.  In a telling remark Bunting asks, imagine any politician saying something similar in the UK now. It is, indeed, unimaginable! Read the full story