'Gendered Citizenry New

BERA
'Gendered Citizenry': New Feminist Perspectives on Education and Citizenship

Author(s): Madeleine Arnot
Source: British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3, Reflexive Accounts of
Educational Reform (Jun., 1997), pp. 275-295
Published by: Wiley on behalf of BERA
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British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1997 275
'Gendered Citizenry': new feminist

perspectives on education and citizensh
MADELEINE ARNOT, University of Cambridge
ABSTRACT This paper describes the recent development of feminist analyses

of education in creating 'inclusive' democratic citizenship. Four discre
perspectives on citizenship are outlined: a theoretical critique of citizenship
male narrative; a socio-historical perspective on women's struggle for equal
through education; deconstruction of the discourses of citizenship used by c
teachers and their gendered dimensions; and an emerging educational p
the gender principles which should affect education for citizenship in
societies. These four perspectives on citizenship offer opportunities to reflect
the past and continuing struggle of women for equality. They suggest, too,
issues which now face any programme of education for citizenship for the n
More than one masculinised democratic discourse, it seems, would need to b
formed for women to achieve full political integration.
Critical Analyses of Citizenship: a new agenda?

Something is rotten in the state of Britain and all the parties know it
buzz word emerging as the salve for this disease is something called cit
ship ... Somewhere out there is an immense unsatisfied demand for it t
something. But it needs to become much more than a word. (Hugo
Guardian, 1 September 1988, quoted in Heater 1990, p. 293)
By the mid-1990s, new educational research in the UK began to develop
concept of citizenship and the political processes, languages and meanings a
such concepts historically and in the post-war period. Such research, al
coherent body of work, raises important new themes and questions abo
In this article I want to draw together for the first time the work of fe
responding to this challenge. Over the last 5 years, I have become aware of
of feminist perspectives which have been developed, here and abroad, on th
of democratic citizenship. These perspectives are not necessarily commensu
do they constitute fully developed theoretical frameworks. At the same tim
view, they represent some of the most far-reaching critiques of libera
educational policy and practice and its consequences, in this case, for the ex
0141-1926/97/030275-21 ?1997 British Educational Research Association
276 M. Arnot
women from public life in Western societies. In this overview, I refle

emerging themes of this contemporary work and show how it ra
important questions for educational research. I shall draw upon some
of particular traditions I have published elsewhere (Arnot, 1991,
et al., 1995, 1996; Arnot & Gordon, 1996).
In the first section I will briefly introduce the British context in wh
currently being ascribed to the term 'citizenship', illustrating the sig
moves to promote education for citizenship in the current political cl
four sections will summarise the themes being addressed by four diff
perspectives. Each in their own way highlights the gendered constructi
These I describe as:
(1) a theoretical critique of citizenship as a modern male narrative;

(2) a socio-historical perspective on women's struggle for equal citizenship throu
education;
(3) deconstruction of the gendered discourses of citizenship used by male and fem
student teachers and their trainers; and
(4) an educational perspective on the gender principles underlying Education f
Citizenship.
Such approaches offer alternative perspectives on how citizenship as a concept

might frame new analytic understandings of the historical and contemporary politica
shaping of the school system. They draw upon, for example, feminist political theory
feminist policy analysis of the state and recent research I have been involved with on
the professional discourses of teaching. The purpose of the article is to highlight the
various ways in which citizenship can be addressed from a feminist perspective, a
how each of these perspectives offers new insights into the purposes and nature
education.
Citizenship: constructing new identities
In 1990, Education for Citizenship was introduced into the English school curriculum as
one of five cross-curricular themes [1]. Beck (1996) describes how, from its inception,
the subject was already identified as one of 'particular political as well as educational
sensitivity', encountering 'ministerial panic and interference' (Graham, 1992, quoted in
Beck, 1996). It was a theme that was soon to demonstrate precisely the same sorts of
ambivalence and confusion which historically had shaped the response of the English
school system to political education and to teaching children about citizenship (cf.
Brennan, 1981).
Schools were offered guidance on what would constitute Education for Citizenship in
Curriculum Guidance 8 (National Curriculum Council [NCC], 1990)--a document that
has been variously described as coy, inconsistent, ambiguous, or naive (see Beck, 1996;
Inman & Buck, 1995). On the one hand, critics claimed that it reflected the 'political
concerns of the New Right in the 1980s, with its emphasis on a form of possessive
individualism balanced by 'a depoliticised' notion of community (cf. Beck, 1996); on the
other hand, it represented 'old wine in new bottles' (Brown, 1991), drawing upon early
twentieth-century concerns about providing 'a communal basis for political life'-a
project supported by religious and other socially concerned bodies to counteract the
excessive materialism of the 1980s [2].
Feminist Perspectives on Education and Citizenship 277
In such a text can be found a model of 'active citizenship' promoted by Conservative

ministers at the time--encouraging a 'rolling back' of the state by reducing state
expenditure and welfare provision, with an even greater reliance on voluntary and
privatised services (House of Commons Commission on Citizenship, 1990). For those
seeking signs of egalitarian ethics, the advice given to schools revealed more lip-service
than actual resolve to tackle the continuing exclusion from public life and political power
of the economically disadvantaged, disabled people, women, minority ethnic groups,
refugees etc. For example, whilst professing the importance of equal opportunities as a
cross-curricular dimension and recognising the violation of human rights represented by
sexism or racism, the proposed syllabus nevertheless was essentially superficial and
descriptive (Inman & Buck, 1995; Miles, 1997). Reference to equal opportunities lacked
'the critical edge', and 'the rigour' that would be needed in order to achieve 'equal
citizenship for all' (Inman & Buck, 1995, p. 93 quoted in Miles, 1997). Without any
reference to the sources of power in society, was there likely to be any realistic carrying
forward of the democratic project?
The compromises reached in Curriculum Guidance 8 signalled the new politically
functional role which the concept of citizenship was to play in official discourses.
Although, as Beck argues, citizenship is an essentially contested concept, schools were
being called upon to construct, through study of the role of the family, the community
and the workplace, a consensual basis for social order [3]. Little reference was made to
the controversiality of the concept of citizenship, particularly for a society such as the
UK which was already structured around the notion of the 'subject' in a hierarchically
organised, monarchical system, rather than a self-governing, democratically organised
republic.
The construction of the cross-curriculum theme could be seen as the first attempt to
reconstruct a definition of the social order, without, as Mrs Thatcher had argued
constructing such as artificial thing as a concept of 'society'. The term 'citizenship' was
starting to function as a means for regalvanising a fractured civil society, under acute
pressure from the forces of marketisation and economic restructuring. As Wexler has
pointed out: 'Contemporary society has killed the Enlightenment's modem individual,
first by commodification, then by communication' (Wexler, 1991, p. 165). Wexler argues
that the rise of an information society involving processes of commodification, the
growth in consumerism, the role of cultural media in the production of knowledge and
political life mean that old truths and moralities are challenged, as are old ethical
'virtues'. In the USA, he suggests that the concept of citizenship is now an 'archaic
term', no longer part of the language of everyday life, a linguistic residue of the modem
era that has passed. In the UK nevertheless, politicians were beginning to mobilise
around the possibility of sustaining a notion of social consensus through just such a
language, separated from its modernist, Enlightenment roots.
The 'space' which the concept of Education for Citizenship was to occupy was to
some extent already being filled by the redefining of the discourses of social justice by
schools and local education authorities. As Troyna & Vincent (1995) found, by the
1990s, the response to the marketisation of schooling was the marginalisation of
collectivism in favour of individualism (p. 161) and the development of new distributive
models of social justice in favour of the consumer democracy [4].
Pressure from the hierarchically organised, subject-based National Curriculum also
prevented any easy transfer of such centrally orchestrated cross-curricular interventions.
As Whitty et al. (1994) found, any attempt to permeate such 'horizontal' integrative
themes across the hierarchical discourses of specialist subjects was already being
278 M. Arnot
treated with suspicion and was faced with low levels of time and/or a
commitment.
Also, little incentive to develop such cross-curricular policies and pr
by Dearing's report (1994) on the National Curriculum, with onl
Standards in Education (OFSTED) left holding onto the idea of a
theme. The concept of Education for Citizenship had to wait for its r
into a new moral debate promoted by the School Curriculum and Asse
(SCAA) in 1996. Having orchestrated a public panic about the dangers
of the 'moral relativism' (often seen as synonymous with the 'soft' eg
multiculturalism) of teachers and pupils, Nicholas Tate, as chief e
publicly for the role for citizenship education. In this new context, t
language of citizenship is being called in to help define social agre
core values and codes of moral conduct for schools (see SCAA, 1
is being brought alongside concerns about spiritual, moral and pe
education, yet again drawing attention away from the many social prob
the country (see Gillborn, this issue). As Beck (1996) argues, such d
their moral concerns can easily distract attention away from th
disenfranchisement of individuals in the UK, particularly in relation
the quango state and more recently the bureaucratisation of powe
Union.
The economic and political realities that have been brought into play by the
membership of the UK in the single European market has also set a different context
for the concept of Education for Citizenship. Here the forces of marketisation and
globalisation on European economies led to attempts to construct in another explicit and
integrative form, a notion of European citizenship. The agenda as Coulby & Jones
(1995) and Sultana (1995) demonstrate is to construct unity through difference-a notion
of a European identity over and above national cultures. A key question is therefore at
which point do national educational systems draw the line between the production and
reproduction of national, European and global identities.
For those committed to the notion of a participatory democracy, clearly of central
concern is whether, within these new political discourses, all citizens will be able to
participate equally (Arnot et al., 1995). From this perspective western European nations
appear to be 'partial' or 'immature' democracies, based more upon the construction of
difference and 'otherness' than upon the principles of inclusion (Coulby & Jones, 1995).
'Fortress Europe' as Nira Yuval Davis (1992) pointed out, has restricted the movement
of some 15 million minority women. It has also been associated with the rise of
xenophobia and racism (Pearson, 1992; Coulby & Jones, 1995). Citizenship, although
often represented as 'universalistic', rarely applies universally.
Looking at educational research in the last decade, it is not clear that educationalists
in the UK have sufficiently addressed such large and highly significant contemporary
political agendas (cf Arnot & Gordon, 1996). In the UK, the research emphasis is
far more upon marketisation of the school system than upon the tensions between
citizenship and the market [5]. Even in the USA, where school-based civic education
has had a much longer history, according to Giroux, radical educators 'failed to develop
a programmatic discourse for reclaiming citizenship education as an important battle-
ground around which to advance emancipatory democratic interests' (1980, p. 8). A key
question must be how should such developments be understood and what analytic tools
are currently available to develop such a 'programmatic discourse'.
As a first attempt to develop what might be called the 'sociology of citizenship', in
the next four sections, I shall contrast feminist sociological accounts of citizenship
that have focused upon education of the citizen and those which focus upon education
for citizenship. First I concentrate upon recent theoretical concerns about the nature
of citizenship and its implications for citizens' identities, suggesting that it is vital
to think more critically about the public/private distinction. This distinction is important
when thinking about the form and content of educational provision and its consequences
for women, especially in relation to women's understanding of themselves as citizens
and the contribution they can make to society. The analyses challenge the assumed
universalism of the 'citizen' as constructed by the modernist welfare state.
In the next section of the paper, I reflect upon feminist campaigns for women's rights
from a historical perspective. Although not often recognised as relevant to political
histories, campaigns to improve women's education were part of the history of European
democracies and the struggle to provide equal citizenship for all within structurally
unequal and hierarchically organised economies. I shall argue that, although such
campaigns challenged liberal democracy, on the whole, in the UK, they did not challenge
the male-centred classifications of public and private.
I then consider from a gender perspective the various discourses or languages that are
being drawn upon to make sense of the term 'citizenship' in different European
countries. Of key importance in the study of state regulation is the relationship between
biography and history, between the structuring influence of state discourses and practi-
tioners' discourses. In this context, I shall be referring, albeit briefly, to empirical data
from a study of contemporary student teachers (England, Wales, Greece, Spain and
Portugal) which describes how the new generation of student teachers understands social
contexts and shifting gender relations, especially in relation to definitions of citizenship.
Of particular importance here is the extent to which contemporary discursive understand-
ings of what it means to be a citizen or a 'good' citizen are gendered. What contribution
are women perceived to be making, or what role can they have in the future in relation
to society?
It is these grander themes taken from political and social sciences which allow us to
consider what sort of education for citizenship we might want for the next generation of
men and women. Reference will be made here to emerging work on gender and
Education for Citizenship and the low priority given in the UK to encouraging a gender
inclusive approach.
Perspective 1: citizenship as a modern (male) narrative

The man (sic) whom education should realise in us is not the man such as
nature has made him, but as the society wishes him to be: and it wishes him
such as its internal economy calls for ... It is society that draws for us the
portrait of the kind of man we should be, and in this portrait all the
peculiarities of its organisation come to be reflected. (Durkheim, 1956,
pp. 64-65)
Two lines of argument can be found in recent sociological theories of citizenship that are
relevant to education. The first concerns the relationship of citizenship to the economy
and the use of education as a means of rational control, particularly of the social masses;
the second exposes gendered assumptions of liberal democratic western European
political philosophy, without necessarily exploring the consequences of such a decon-
struction for schooling.
280 M. Arnot
Heater's seminal text, Citizenship: the civic ideal in world hist

education (1990), gave us an important new slant to our understandin
education as the 'modernist project par excellence' (Gilbert, 1992
citizenship, in whatever form, is shown to have been buffeted by th
major political doctrines-nationalism, which requires a citizenry s
enthusiastic loyalty; liberal democracy, requiring a citizenry to
understanding (and due deference to their betters); and socialism
potentially destabilise middle-class and capitalist establishments (Heate
In countries such as England, however, many industrialists and cons
that the populace should be 'politically ignorant or passive'. Politi
eschewed in favour of a particular role for the state education system
surveillance rather than the ancient Greek ideals of cultivating the 'vir
the ongoing quest for freedom', for 'intelligent and active partici
community' (Giroux, 1980, p. 329).
European political discourses were powerfully reframed by the F
around the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. According to
Enlightenment established humanity as 'the hero of liberty'-the subje
ways which constructed a legitimating consensus among 'the people',
defined (quoted in Gilbert, 1992, p. 54). A 'mirage of freedom' was of
educational system was directly implicated:
The state resorts to the narrative of freedom every time it ass

control over the training of the 'people', under the name of the 'n
order to point them down the path of progress. (Lyotard, 1984, p. 3
Gilbert, 1992, p. 54)
If the Enlightenment was the 'best hour' (Wexler, 1990) for mo

citizenship, citizenship was 'an emblem of modernity'-an emblem
as well as the bond between people within and across often hierarchical
ethnically diverse societies. Citizenship also offered liberal democracie
of community membership based on loyalty to a civilisation wh
possession' (Marshall, 1965, p. 101, quoted in Wexler, 1991). Such mode
were contested again and again, not least by women and by the w
(cf. Heater, 1990). On the one hand, women struggled to acquire s
discussion of perspective 3 below); on the other hand, they challenged
masculinised citizenry. The Enlightenment from the latter perspective
as both a modernist but also a male narrative.
Carole Pateman (1980, 1988, 1992) is perhaps the most widely recognised feminist
political theorist who has exposed the gendered assumptions of European modern
philosophical thought. Her critique reveals the masculinised/patriarchal basis of the
narratives of citizenship described above, in particular the gendered nature of the
'abstracted citizen' which lies at the heart of liberal democratic thought and the
dilemmas it poses for women wishing to participate more fully within democratic
societies.
Pateman's analysis, for example, of the 'fraternal pact' which lies embedded wi
liberal democratic thought is a challenging critique of the ways in which women
been constructed both 'inside' and 'outside' western European versions of dem
and citizenship. She argues that the concept of citizenship which was framed by w
European political philosophy is what Marx called a 'political lion's skin' wor
occasionally and somewhat reluctantly by women. In The Disorder of Women, she points
out that this political lion's skin:
has a large mane and belonged to a male lion-it is a costume for men. When
women finally win the right to don the lion's skin, it is exceedingly ill-fitting
and therefore unbecoming. (1980, p. 6)
For Pateman, the concept of social order refers essentially to a rational, autonomous
selfhood where individuals act according to universal and objective moral principles,
transcending private interests. Yet the source of such notions of the individual and the
principles of action is a western European version of masculinity. Men, for the
predominantly male European political philosophers, exemplified the potential of
humans to create a social order that is based upon rationality and truth.
On the other side of the equation, that of disorder, we find women represented as
having 'debasing self interests' (Kant), and an inability to generate an ethical conscious-
ness (Hegel) (both cited in Lloyd, 1986). Women's political disorder meant that they
must be excluded from the original social contract, or in effect, the fraternal pact will
be threatened. The implication here is that the further women enter into male public
spheres, the more they are seen to threaten the social order.
From this perspective, liberal democratic theory has constructed and worked with a set
of antagonistic universalising categories of male and female and has attributed to the
particular characteristics to men and women in ways which shape their experiences as
citizens. Liberal democratic philosophy has construed women as that which has 'to be
transcended to be a citizen' (Lloyd, 1986). Women are symbols of emotion, natural
feeling, caring for those closely related to them. They are not seen to be capable of the
objectivity and the principled behaviour which characterises precisely the worker, the
soldier and the citizen.
The separation of the public and private spheres came to be representative of the
distinction between male and female. In the public spheres, men are represented as
masters of themselves-in the private sphere women are represented as mastered by
men. Men, by transcending the private domain, are portrayed as social whilst women are
constructed within liberal democratic discourse as part of, and symbolic of, the private
domain. Women are included, but in particular narrow and inferior domains. As Pateman
(1992) pointed out, in advanced industrial societies, 'Motherhood and citizenship are ..
set apart'.
In this context, two key themes emerge. First, there is what Pateman (1992) calls
'Wollstonecraft's dilemma'-the dilemma of whether women should fight just for
equal/identical rights, and the same access to education as men or whether they should
fight for recognition of women's distinctive familial or 'female' contribution to citizen-
ship and society. Should one take the view that men and women deserve equal but
different treatment on the basis of their different social and collective experiences?
Should motherhood, for example, provide a basis for a new culture of citizenship-using
the maternal bond rather than the fraternal pact as the basis for social solidarity (cf.
Dietz, 1985 quoted in Amrnot, 1995)? It is in this context that a number of feminists have
been arguing for the importance of maternalism (the mother-child relationship) in
education, as a source of pedagogic communication, or a form of personal authority, or
as an alternative set of ethical virtues based on 'a caring ethic' (see Arnot, 1995;
Dillabough & Arnot, forthcoming, for a fuller discussion).
A second theme is the ensuing debate about the role of public-private distinction in
relation to citizenship. Of interest to some is the relationship between, as Levinson
282 M. Arnot
(1996) put it, the demands placed on education by liberalism, in partic

the centrality of the public-private distinction, and the demands plac
democracy. Levinson argues that what characterises the English mode
example, is precisely the recognition of the demands of the private sph
of such demands and the difficulty that this places on the respon
schools in relation to the needs of citizenship.
However, feminist analyses of these distinctions suggest that, as Ma
(1995) point out, the dichotomy between public and private sph
understood as culturally and historically specific; equal significance sh
to the privatisation of the public sphere and the invasion of public va
worlds:
Perhaps the most important statement from feminist cultural stu

recognition that the accepted notions about the appropriate public
socially constructed notions ... to provide advantages to those w
power to construct them, usually white males. That people accept th
notions of the public sphere enhances its power. Other ways, altern
and differently framed priorities are delegitimised as personal pr
fringe group interests. (Marshall & Anderson, 1995, p. 182)
Feminist explorations of the role which the educational system plays

construction of 'national narratives', the 'abstracted individual' (cf. Pa
of 'public or private space', although not linked, nevertheless indicate
lines of development [6]. For example, Gordon et al.'s research on
and in the UK (Gordon, 1992, 1996; Gordon et al., 1996) suggests that
spaces are being structured through school practices and that within
are 'abstracted' from social relations of gender, class, race and ethnici
professional pupils. Regulation of pupils occurs through control of spa
paths), and the processes of embodiment which differentiate between
leads to the granting of differential levels of autonomy to girls and b
empirical research in Finland and the UK is still at an early stage, it o
understanding of the processes by which children are removed fr
environments and reconstructed either as 'insiders' or as 'others' in the context of nation
state and citizenship. Again the needs of the male individual are the norm, defining and
constraining the public and private 'spaces' in which children can develop.
Pateman's (1980) suggestion that women cannot just be inserted into the public arena
(nor the battlefield) without creating major social upheaval is well illustrated by Foster's
(1996) research in Australian schools (see also Kenway, this issue). Foster's analysis
takes up these themes of 'space' in her analysis of the 'interconnected and shifting
aspects of public and private life'. She investigates how girls, now pursuing equal rights
of participation as citizens, attempt to negotiate the demands of a neo-liberal framework
which has at its centre 'a masculinist subject' (p. 43). Foster differentiates between the
actual physical space in which social relations are conducted, and a conceptual space
with 'cultural, ideological and experiential dimensions' (p. 43). In their desire to move
from their positioning in a female private realm to relative equality with men within the
public realm, girls open up an 'experiential space' into which they try to transpose
themselves-what Foster calls a transpositional mediating space. It is a space that
constitutes not just 'a desire' but also a threat to girls themselves. The threat lies in girls'
construction of their lack of essential knowledge in a 'paradigmatically masculine
curriculum' (p. 57). Schools are portrayed as sites of both regulation and rebellion.
What such theoretical and empirical research suggests is not just the contemporary
processes of the construction of the citizen. Feminist campaigns to break down the
gendering of public and private spheres, or indeed to achieve equality for women in the
public sphere, strike at the heart of a gendered discourse of western European notions
of democracy.
Perspective 2: a socio-historical analysis of women's struggle for equal citizenship

through education
Many western European nation states have had to respond to increasingly confident
feminist campaigns which exploited the discourses of citizenship and democracy
(Heater, 1990). As Heater points out, by the twentieth century, such struggles intensified.
But it was never clear whether the opposition to granting women full citizenship status
was a result of 'apathy or perceived utility'.
There are now a number of reflective retrospective accounts of the impact on
feminism on educational systems in the last two decades (Middleton, 1993; Arnot, 1991;
Weiner, 1994), including the ways in which power is exercised through the operation of
the state and how the state both constructs and is constructed by the history of such
gendered contestation. Women's struggles to be 'included' have been shaped by the
ways in which women have been 'constructed' within official educational policies and
discourses, but also how such constructions have been challenged. Feminist historians
have traced, for example, the impact of the discourses of eugenics, patriotism, economic
rationalism and latterly welfarism, which narrowed and directed female education into
the particular curricular and occupational routes. All too often, the curricular traditions
regulating women defined a female role which privileged the domestic and nurturing/
caring and tended to emphasise (certainly in the UK) a vocational education that was
people rather than subject-centred. Women were to be educated as daughters of the
nation, imbued with an ethos of duty and service to both society and to their menfolk
(cf. Amot, 1991, for more detail).
What these various discourses have in common was the construction of a category of
'woman' separated from notions of the male citizen. Embedded within nineteenth and
twentieth-century educational discourses are concepts of female social status and destiny,
female personalities, female intellectual capacities, needs and interests. Women were
constructed by essentialist theories of biological/psychological differences; despite their
differences in social status and life experiences, they have often been described in such
educational discourses as a homogeneous rather than a heterogeneous category.
The solution, in England, was to run an almost parallel education system for women
alongside that organised for boys and their clearly differentiated vocational futures
(Arnot, 1983). The 'myth of female classlessness' could be argued to have made such
relatively homogeneous female education appear legitimate. At the same time women
were being denied the various educational and social rights that some men acquired
through schooling (Arnot, 1983). Until the 1960s, such gendered patterns of education
were largely an uncontested aspect of postwar society, with its concerns for developing
a liberal democratic state. The political impetus came less from central political
discourses of liberation, and more from the contradictions of an educational system
based upon the twin principles of welfare as well as economic stratification. As
Rowbothan (1986) argued, women were 'hurtled' into the economic sphere with
improved educational achievements, only to be confronted by the inequities of dis-
criminatory employment and childcare structures.
The challenge to such universalising of women's educational requirements and the
284 M. Arnot
related patterns of gender differentiation developed with the growth

movement, which took two different directions: liberal democratic and
feminism.
The nature of liberal feminism in education is now familiar to m

criticism of the limitations of liberal feminism, which I have addressed
1991), have now given way to a greater understanding of the political
impact of this tradition. Let it be said that the work of liberal femin
women to have access to male forms of high status education succeede
some of the most 6litist and hierarchical institutions in our socie
Connell (1990) argued, mounted a 'formidable and sustained' atta
institutions within democratic societies, by using the very rhetoric of
Liberal feminists rejected the second class education given to girls. T
subordinated status of women within the public sphere-most noticeab
and economic arenas-by arguing for the rights of women as indi
their full potential within such societies. Women as individuals ha
educated beyond the categories of daughter, wife and mother. They h
be educated to take their place within the public domain.
The starting point for such a programme of educational reform
demonstration of sexual inequalities in the educational system. The ed
generated in the 1970s and 1980s showed just how fractured democrat
Also exposed were the ways in which the state and state education, w
liberalism should have been a neutral arbiter, had been captured
revealed the extent to which the state was, in effect, a fratemity, with
the machineries by which social justice was being defined.
At the same time the data revealed the extent of occupational
Statistical evidence exposed the incompatibilities between democra
Intentionally or unintentionally, liberal feminist campaigns unmasked
limits of liberal democratic societies to give women anything other th
marginal status.
Liberal feminist initiatives in education challenged to an incre
structuring principles of an educational system designed to support g
tiation. The dominance of familial discourses, although adapted to fit
of women in the early post-war period, were shown to be incom
universalistic and child-centred principles behind the welfare state. T
sation of schools had demonstrably not worked in favour of fem
(defined by occupational and social mobility). The organisation of the
timetable, the school culture and hidden curriculum, classroom int
pupils and between teacher and taught were all shown to have be
assumptions of gender categorisation and hierarchies. The narrative of
being one of increasing freedom for girls in relation to their dest
channelling and closure.
Nevertheless, liberal feminist educational campaigns worked with th
'spaces' provided by liberal democracy to attempt to change girls' edu
ences. The goal was to remove the obstacles to genuine freedom of cho
play, and action within the educational system. Such reforms often d
need, not for greater areas of individual or school discretion, but rath
imposed policies in the name of sex equality. What emerged from
schooling in the UK for example, was that where freedom of curr
promoted, gender differentiation had shaped the patterns of such pup
freedom of play (at playtime) was encouraged, sexual harassment and verbal abuse was
given space; where freedom of speech was promoted, sexist language was given
expression; where teacher and school autonomy was valued, sex discrimination against
female teachers was found and gender issues were marginalised (see Arnot, 1991). The
individual 'freedoms' previously allowed under liberal educational philosophy were
increasingly becoming problematic for feminist teachers (e.g. Walkerdine, 1990).
Strategies which were in line with increased central state regulation were developed.
These involved the 'closure' of such spaces and the increasing intervention of state
policy-makers and top-down management strategies. Paradoxically, such campaigns,
which were meant to promote equality of opportunity for both sexes, could also become
the vehicle for the denial of those rights. In the context of the UK, where liberal
democracy has an unsettled relationship with egalitarian controls, even the weakest form
of egalitarianism can come to represent a threat to individual 'freedoms'.
We can only understand the significance of such feminist campaigns in the UK by
locating them in the relationship between liberal feminism and the post-war liberal
democratic state and its versions of citizenship. Liberal democratic feminism had
exploited the version of citizenship put forward in the aftermath of the Second World
War. Key to this period was the notion of social regeneration towards a more just, open
and modern society. T. H. Marshall (1950), an influential social commentator, remarked
on the significance of what he defined as a new concept of social citizenship--which
complemented and extended previous definitions.
Marshall argued that the new values of social citizenship had complemented, on the
one hand, a civil element and, on the other, a political element of citizenship which had
been developed over the last century. In the post-war welfare state citizens were to have:
the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security
to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a
civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society. (Marshall,
1950, p. 10, quoted in House of Commons, 1990, p. 5)
By the 1960s, these definitions of social citizenship had been transformed by a range of
new social movements, such as the women's and black civil rights movements. What
was being stressed was a 'floor of entitlements'--the rights of all individuals to have
their basic needs met by the state (e.g. housing, nutrition and education). Feminism
addressed this extended concept of social citizenship, driving it deeper into the family,
intimate personal freedoms, 'desire' and culture (Rowbothan, 1986).
The history of women's educational reform movements was fraught with contra-
dictions. On the one hand liberal democratic feminists turned the concept of rights
'against the patriarchal model of citizenship' (Connell, 1990). They produced a 'power-
ful and sharp edged' analysis of male dominance in most of the institutions of
government (of which education was one). On the other, they tended to offer support to
the maintenance of the public-private distinction, by setting aside issues of sexuality,
intimacy and privacy. Educational reform was predominantly about extending merito-
cratic principles to women, particularly in relation to the labour market, without
fundamentally disrupting the regulation of the family and women's role within it.
The value of such socio-historical analysis of contemporary movements lies in
defining the limits of social change. Although well within liberal democratic discourses,
liberal feminist work has been shown, through research, to have supported rather than
denied the conclusions of feminist political theorists about the significance of the public
and private distinction.
286 M. Arnot
Perspective 3: teachers and the gendered languages of citizen

Citizenship is a form of cultural production ... the making of c
understood as an ideological process through which we exper
as well as our relations to others and the world within a compl
contradictory system of representations and images. (Giroux, 1
emphasis)
The third perspective on the construction of a gendered citizenry can be developed by

focusing upon the similarities and differences in the ways in which men and women
speak of citizenship. What conceptual imagery, what gender narrative or discursive
frameworks do they draw upon to construct men and women's position in society? How
do citizens come to understand their own position in relation to such abstracted ideals
and to what extent are they empowered by such forms of representation and regulation?
In the context of social transitions, discussions for example with student teachers in
five European countries offer the possibility of assessing the impact of new social orders
and of gauging the impact of new political/educational discourses (Arnot et al., 1995,
1996). As our study [7] showed, the concept of citizenship is understood as part of other
significant discourses. Not only do national and cultural differences emerge, but so too
do commonalities of tradition which bond European societies together.
Citizenship, we found, did not consist of a unitary discourse. Indeed, we found that
distinctions could be made between what we called the 'political', the 'moral' and the
'egalitarian' languages of citizenship. Such languages appeared to rely, in different ways
in different contexts, upon republican notions of liberty, fraternity (sic) and equality.
Student teachers, like any other member of society, when struggling to make sense of
the term-a term that was not part of everyday speech in any of the five countries
studied--called into play other systems of meanings and descriptions of social life. Out
of the bricolage came systems of representations about the relations between individual
and the state, society and the common good (Arnot et al., 1996).
Understandings and definitions of citizenship appear to have been shaped by:
"* political discourses drawing upon Greco-Roman traditions of political life and the
duties of the state in relation to civil society and to the individual, and the duties of
the individual in relation to the state;
"* moral discourses using the vocabulary and metaphors of Judaeo-Christian philo-
sophies, especially those to do with core ethical values/virtues, social conformity and
"the common good'; and
"* egalitarian discourses (qot dissimilar from what some call 'civic republicanism' [see
Crewe, 1997]) deriving from the humanistic, liberal democratic traditions shaped by
the French Revolution around the rights of individuals to freedom from oppression,
from poverty, from violence (and more recently to a range of social entitlements).
What was also noticeable in these three discourses of citizenship was the extent to which
each privileged, in their own way, men and marginalised women as 'other'. The
public/private distinction affected not just political discourses on the role of the state and
the individual's duty in relation to civic action, but also egalitarian discourses about
rights, and moral discourses about common values and caring/community roles. None of
the three discourses of citizenship privileged female over male spheres and even more
significantly female student teachers (especially in the Mediterranean) expressed their
distance from, rather than their empowerment by, these three discourses.
For example, Greek female teachers appeared to delegate political discourses to men,
preferring to transform moral discourses in ways which celebrated the mother as social
reformer. Spanish female student teachers had difficulties engaging with the more recent
transition from a nationalist to socialist government. This transition, which represents a
'foundation myth' about the rise of modern Spanish democracy is even spoken of, in
Spain, as a young boy: it is common to say that 'Spanish democracy still wears short
trousers'. Women in Portugal spoke of the contradictions between an egalitarian
discourse operating in the public sphere and failing to have any meaning for women in
the private sphere.
Strong gendered imagery also came through concepts of the good citizen constructed
in relation to each of the discourses. Whilst strong male public roles were used by male
teachers, there were far fewer roles for women. Men in Greece spoke of the political
importance of the 'critical citizen' fighting for democracy, or the moral role of
'productive worker', contributing to economic growth; in contrast, Greek female student
teachers preferred to discuss the duty to become a 'protesting citizen', fighting for rights
promised yet still denied to women.
In the UK, awareness of the impact of social class values in relation to social
conformity also triggered strongly gendered and class-based images of the good/moral
citizen:
The citizen is a necessarily nice man in a bowler hat who has got a job ... in
the city and then comes back to his nice semi-detached house with a wife and
2.5 kids. (Welsh male student teacher).
All the connotations to citizenship we have in society are all very middle class
... I'll be a good citizen and play cricket, that type of thing ... it has no
relevance to most people ... the average man in the street. (English male
student teacher)
Although moral discourses appeared to override the distinction between public and
private, through referencing 'the common good' and common values, good citizenship
was premised on a concept of good public works rather than parenting roles, caring for
the aged or the sick within the home. Charity work, community work, caring roles,
generally seen as women's work, whether in the home or in the professions, are signalled
as relevant but with little conviction. As one English male student teacher said:
There are a lot of people who are in very caring professions-that doesn't
mean they are good citizens.
Whilst male student teachers worried over the nature of social values, conformity and
possibly encouraging a productive, law-abiding member of society, female student
teachers in a number of countries emphasised the importance of the family as a relevant
site for discovering the 'good citizen'. Indeed, women's role as mothers and as carers
was highlighted and appeared to be celebrated by women as an alternative source of
critical, civic action. The artificiality of the boundary between public and private was no
more clearly displayed than in the context of moral discourses.
The data indicate the continuing identification of gendered spheres, and especially the
dominance of what Connell (1990) referred to as the European equation between
authority and a dominating masculinity. Political and egalitarian discourses especially
appeared to apply to public spheres and to assume a relevance to men in relation to
democratic processes and development.
Earlier, I referred to Heater's suggestion that within modernist narratives, concepts of
citizenship can be contested again and again. New forms of solidarity and 'rationalities'
288 M. Arnot
can be formed and reformed, impinging more or less upon state ed

such a context, it is possible to understand, for example, the nation
political, moral and egalitarian discourses in the new generation of
well as the differences between national contexts. Student teachers to
the legacies of such nationalism, of liberalism and socialism. For
teachers, the legacies of the 1970s can be identified in their fears c
of the 'organised state' and the need to forge ahead in what they re
for democracy. Historical continuities have allowed them to sustain
activism and engagement with the state.
In contrast, Spanish teachers' representations of citizenship reflec
Spanish central government, which has been trying for the last
new sense of national membership (over and above regional and
After 40 years of dictatorship (1939-75), Spain established a new
Democratic and human rights are in the process of being lear
there is not surprisingly an insecurity about the nature and exercise
Within such national transformations too, lie shifting definitions of
civil, social and reproductive rights. As Phillips (1991a, 1991b, 1992)
is no necessary progression from, say, civic to political to social rig
1950).
Student teachers in the UK have been brought up as 'Thatcher's children'-a
generation which was told that 'the age of egalitarianism is over'. These younger student
teachers express concern over protecting individual freedoms, and valuing tolerance, at
the same time suggesting sensitivity to social diversity and pluralism. Some have come
through the period of their youth realising the emphasis on market philosophies and
materialistic values. They express concern about the lack of 'belonging' to a community.
The benchmarks in terms of citizenship for this new generation of teachers are not as
clearly demarcated as those of their counterparts in the other countries. In contrast, they
appear to be grappling with egalitarian discourses and social movements of the past, as
well as with current alienations from the present.
There is no strong evidence from this small sample that the new generation of teachers
in the UK are able to articulate discourses of citizenship which are personally mean-
ingful or liberatory. On the whole, the English and Welsh student teachers held
impoverished notions of political discourse, and made critical or even cynical references
to the moral superficiality or corruption of politicians. At the same time, many appeared
acutely aware of the continuing extent of social inequalities and the force of dominant
class values in contemporary society.
The weakness of the political discursive framework in the UK revealed by our study,
especially in the context of the current mobilising of the moral discourses by politicians,
has major implications for any egalitarian project. The increasing tensions between
individual and collectivity, especially in fragmented and pluralistic societies, are being
covered over by new notions of a 'common good' (such as that represented by the
cross-curricular theme on citizenship, or the new SCAA initiatives).
Perhaps because of the illusion of universalism implied by the new moralism, the
gendered nature of the concept of the individual and the state (Connell, 1990) are also
not being exposed. For some female student teachers, such illusions are not sustained;
for others, the abstraction allows them to ignore gender dynamics.
The analysis of the discourses of citizenship allowed us to identify the tensions,
contradictions, illusions of democracy and its sociocultural shaping. The languages used
to talk about citizenship represented society in transfigured and gendered form and
offered different positions for men and women as social actors in relation to those forms.
As such, they should be key aspects for any discussion of Education for Citizenship.
Perspective 4: an educational perspective on the gender principles underlying

education for citizenship
Moves to promote an 'Education for Citizenship' are of great interest to feminists keen
to encourage greater female participation in the polity. In a recent paper T. McLaughlin
(1992) made the useful distinction between minimal and maximal views of citizenship,
either of which could be used for education for citizenship. Minimal views of citizenship
refers to an individual's civil status and associated rights based on the rule of law. Civic
education here would emphasise conformity to core values, community-based volun-
tarism and limited political engagement. Maximal views, in contrast, is 'a richer thing,
than say, the possession by a person of a passport, the right to vote and an unreflective
"nationality"' (p. 236). These maximal views of citizenship would suggest that:
the citizen must have a consciousness of him or her self as a member of a
living community with a shared democratic culture involving obligations and
responsibilities as well as rights, a sense of the common good, fraternity (sic)
and so on. This latter, maximal interpretation of the identity required by a
citizen is dynamic rather than static in that it is seen as a matter of continuing
debate and redefinition. (McLaughlin, 1992, p. 236)
For those attempting to reconstruct maximal versions of citizenship which are inclusi
and egalitarian, the key issues are, first, one of identity and the second that of agenc
Identity, particularly in the sense of belonging, and agency in the sense of empowermen
are complex constructs, hard to define and even harder to create. For some, such
Wexler (1991), quoted earlier, postmodern conditions have spelt the death knell of the
Enlightenment's modem individual, and with it the old civic and ethical 'virtues' and
moralities. In the world of multiple subjectivities, he argued, there is little chance of
generating collective identities or coherent world views about the meaning of citizenshi
especially among the youth of today who are affected by global cultural/media politic
In the context of the USA, Wexler argues:
citizenship is an archaic term. It is not part of the language of everyday life.
Its value for understanding this life is not evident either. Of course political
scientists and educators write about citizenship and citizenship education. Does
citizenship have any meaning outside of such an expert culture? Or, is
citizenship a linguistic residue of the modem era that has passed? (Wexler,
1991, p. 164)
Some feminists would certainly want to celebrate the passing of such an Enlightenment
project with its gendered divisions between emotion and reason, between public and
private, and its construction of the 'abstract' citizen as male. As Benton (1991) argues,
"A politics of citizenship founded on liberty, equality and above all fraternity offers little
of value to members of the sorority' (p. 163).
Ellis (1991), in her article 'Sisters and citizens', suggests that the exclusion of women
from the male hierarchies of power generated by such a modernist project has led to the
trivialisation of women's issues; the alienation of women from participation in a body
politic shaped by masculine ethos and traditions, and the failure of political life to
provide the basis of female identities as citizens.
Other feminists would want to pursue McLaughlin's notion of maximal citizenship but
290 M. Arnot
TABLE I. Secondary student teachers' perceptions of the importance of educational

for Citizenship
All students (%) Male (%) Female (%)

(n = 364) (n = 149) (n = 215)
Schools should:
encourage students to question media
representations of men and women 64 58 70
encourage girls to participate in public life 62 52 73*
improve men's involvement in domestic work 48 33 63t
encourage women in non-traditional
occupations 42 33 50*
encourage boys to consider care
caring professions 34 26 410
promote respect for women's work in the 53 47 59
family
promote men as the main breadwinners 2 3 1
*Chi squared approx 23.8, df = 4, p > 0.001

tChi squared approx 41.9, df = 4, p > 0.001
*Chi squared approx 17.9, df = 4, p > 0.01
?Chi squared approx 24.3; df = 4, p > 0.001
Source: Arnot et al., 1995
with a more explicitly gender critical approach. Elin

gender issues certainly looks very different from that pr
8, and the recent SCAA (1996) consultation paper on valu
and redress practices that reinforce gender roles and
children should be allowed to learn about, discuss, and ac
issues of power and social injustice. The two key examples
and harassment in school, and secondly, domestic viol
adult life.
However, the EU project (Arnot et al., 1995) also sugges
new generation of student teachers do not necessarily
equality is a key function of schooling today (see Tab
prioritised the same aims overall as female students, sug
a social movement that is not confined to only one gender
sample agreed far more strongly than male student teac
Citizenship which would challenge gender roles. The diff
ments described above were significant. But then women
changing gender roles than men.
At the very least, if education is to be used for the crea
which are both maximal and gender inclusive, then far m
into the framing of the programme than hitherto. For w
full sense of the term, the concept of democracy wh
traditions would need to be taught as a gendered and
(1991b) would argue, it needs to be 'engendered'--its g
At the very minimum there would need to be a valu
women's contribution to the collectivity (not merely
by men) and a recognition of the historically constru
world-views of men and women (see Arnot, et al., 199
modem forms of patriarchy developed new modes of inclusion for women, particularly
in the public sphere. Some elements of that process can be found in the changing
participation of women in public life. However, post modem conditions of work also
result in men's increasing absence from the home. Women are not necessarily released
from their domesticity by postmodernity. It is interesting that student teachers in our
project (Arnot et al., 1995) saw men in domestic life (e.g. housework, decisions about
moving house) as 'disorganised' and had no positive or negative image at all of men's
role in private life (i.e making key decisions about, for example, contraception or the
number of children to have) [8].
Given such conditions the way forward cannot be to retain existing discourses,
whether political, moral or egalitarian. Certainly none of the discourses used by student
teachers was unproblematic in its construction of what constitutes the citizen and the
'good citizen' and its consequences both for society generally and for women in
particular.
Conclusions
What I have shown are the different ways in which we might think deeply and bro
about the project in which we are engaged and how we might consider tack
Education for Citizenship. Current debates about the role of the educational system
relation to the formation of citizens focus on the failure of 'partial' or imma
democracies (as some have called western European nations) to ensure that all citize
are equal (Arnot, 1995). In terms of gender relations, the debate on citizenshi
focusing attention on the contradictions between, on the one hand, the modernisin
gender relations through cultural discourses and, on the other hand, the cont
difficulty in improving women's participation in the labour market and in economic
political decision-making (Mossuz-Lavau, 1992; Levy, 1992).
Democratic structures within advanced industrial economies have only conc
limited political gains to women, most notably in relation to access to education and
professions. The labour market in Europe, for example, is still structured by gend
equality, as are political institutions in most countries. In Great Britain, Spain, Gre
and Portugal, women make up less than 15% of the elected representatives of natio
assemblies. Only recently have women achieved near equality of representatio
social democratic nations of Scandinavia. Female educational success, on the whole,
not challenged such infrastructures, confirming that educational opportunities are
necessarily the same as social opportunities. It is one thing to obtain large numbers
educational certificates, it is another to convert them into economic capital w
hierarchically organised labour markets.
The Report of the Commission of Citizenship (House of Commons, 1990) rece
alerted us to the contradictions in women's position. In the UK, women are still be
overused as carers; they provide the majority of volunteer help, and are no
participating fully in policy-making bodies. Poverty is still unequally distribu
disproportionately affecting female single parents, and a high percentage of the ver
(the majority of whom are women). At the other extreme, women are clustere
educational and health provision, which are critical elements in the distributio
welfare services.
Thus, a wealth of issues are raised by thinking through the relationship between
feminism and democracy. As Anne Phillips (1991b), a feminist political theorist, write
in her book Engendering Democracy:
292 M. Arnot
In our period, the contemporary women's movement has forged

powerful connection [between democracy and feminism] and with
mined critique of hierarchy and sustained anti-authoritarianism,
into a virtual testing ground for democracy's most radical ide
1991b, p. 2, my addition)
In conclusion, by using examples of feminist research, I have tried to

the importance of critically analysing the concept of citizenship in re
Such analysis can take various forms, all of which give importan
political framing of educational practice. State regulation may work th
training of citizens, but it may also work more covertly through the s
movements such as the women's movement. Teachers' discourses
also been shown to be shaped in subtle ways, not simply through libe
the philosophies of the New Right: they employ a range of different
about and make sense of citizenship. At the same time various politic
to frame egalitarian, moral and political goals through curricula
Citizenship. The challenge for educational researchers is to reflect crit
tively on the role which the category of 'citizenship' has played and
to play in structuring educational provision and sets of social relation
case, gender relations. The key question remains, what would an 'i
for Citizenship entail?
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper 'The Dimensions of Democracy and F
of education reform' was published in K. Deliyanni & R. Ziogou
School Praxis, Thessaloniki, Vania, 1997.
I would like to thank the EU and Georgia Hemmingsen for financia
project Promoting Equality Awareness: women as citizens (DG22: Gran
00 EGA 0138 00), the Leverhulme Trust for a research fellowsh
analysis; Gabrielle Ivinson, Joanne Dillabough and Sheila Miles for the
on this project. I would also like to thank my European colleagues, Am
Deliyanni, Helena Ardujo and their research teams for broadening my
expressed are mine alone.
Correspondence: Madeleine Arnot, School of Education, Universit

17 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA, UK.
NOTES
[1] Other cross curricular themes were Environmental Education, Economic Awareness, He
Education and Careers Education.
[2] For further discussion, see Miles (1997), unpublished paper on Representations of gender in
education for citizenship, produced as part of the EU funded project 'Promoting Equality Awareness,
Women as Citizens'.
[3] There are eight components-community; a pluralist society; being a citizen; the family; democr
in action; the citizen and the law; work, employment and leisure; and public services.
[4] For further discussion of the New Right individualist notion of citizenship see, for example, Quick
1992; Ransom, 1990.
[5] Heater argues these two forces have been at war for the last 300 years. See also Arnot & Gordon
(1996) for further discussion.
[6] Yuval Davis (1992, 1996), for example, challenges the idea that public and private have fixed
borders; the family and the educational system can be both inside and outside the state; Penny Enslin
(1995), writing about gender and the emergent forms of democratic citizenship in South Africa,
supports those feminist critiques which suggest that educational (state) interventions are needed into
the private not just the public spheres.
[7] Detailed analysis of the levels of 'gender literacy' of a sample of approximately 300 student teachers
in Greece, 375 in England and Wales, 103 in Catalonia, Spain, and 180 in Portugal. Interviews were
conducted with 14 and 40 teacher trainers in Greece and England and Wales respectively, and with
9 Spanish and 10 Portuguese teacher trainers. Details can be found in the final reports of the project
(Arnot, et al., 1995 and in Spain and Portugal in Tome, et aL, 1995).
Qualitative data referred to in this paper are drawn from the transcripts of the single-sex focus
groups conducted with secondary student teachers (eight in England and Wales, five in Greece, two
in Spain, each group had approximately five student teachers). The average age of English and
Welsh student teachers was 24 years old.
[8] In contrast, 40% of student teachers considered men to be 'competitive' and 'powerful' in public and
working life. Over a third of our sample described women as 'efficient' or 'competent' in public and
working life; and as 'competent' in domestic and in private life.
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'Gendered Citizenry': New Feminist Perspectives on Education and Citizenship

'Gendered Citizenry': new feminist

MADELEINE ARNOT, University of Cambridge

ABSTRACT This paper describes the recent development of feminist analyses

Critical Analyses of Citizenship: a new agenda?

0141-1926/97/030275-21 ?1997 British Educational Research Association

women from public life in Western societies. In this overview, I refle

(1) a theoretical critique of citizenship as a modern male narrative;

Such approaches offer alternative perspectives on how citizenship as a concept

Citizenship: constructing new identities

In such a text can be found a model of 'active citizenship' promoted by Conservative

Perspective 1: citizenship as a modern (male) narrative

Heater's seminal text, Citizenship: the civic ideal in world hist

The state resorts to the narrative of freedom every time it ass

If the Enlightenment was the 'best hour' (Wexler, 1990) for mo

(1996) put it, the demands placed on education by liberalism, in partic

Perhaps the most important statement from feminist cultural stu

Feminist explorations of the role which the educational system plays

Perspective 2: a socio-historical analysis of women's struggle for equal citizenship

related patterns of gender differentiation developed with the growth

The nature of liberal feminism in education is now familiar to m

Perspective 3: teachers and the gendered languages of citizen

The third perspective on the construction of a gendered citizenry can be developed by

can be formed and reformed, impinging more or less upon state ed

Perspective 4: an educational perspective on the gender principles underlying

TABLE I. Secondary student teachers' perceptions of the importance of educational

All students (%) Male (%) Female (%)

*Chi squared approx 23.8, df = 4, p > 0.001

with a more explicitly gender critical approach. Elin

In our period, the contemporary women's movement has forged

In conclusion, by using examples of feminist research, I have tried to

Correspondence: Madeleine Arnot, School of Education, Universit

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