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Girls are now out-performing boys at GCSE level, giving rise to a debate in the media on boys' underachievement. However, often such work has been a 'knee-jerk' response, led by media, not based on solid research. Boys, Girls and Achievement - Addressing the Classroom Issues fills that gap and:*provides a critical overview of the current debate on achievement;*Focuses on interviews with young people and classroom observations to examine how boys and girls see themselves as learners;*analyses the strategies teachers can use to improve the educational achievements of both bo

This article focuses on primary school children's constructions of adult occupation in relation to gender, investigating whether or not they construct gender as a source of discrimination in the adult workplace. In order to do so, children were questioned about hypothetical scenarios concerning gender and adult work. By analysing their responses this paper investigates which gendered constructions appeared to prevail, and the ways in which children explained their ideas. Thus, having described the methodology used and research approach taken, the first section of the article begins by providing a figurative over-view of children's responses to the different questions. This demonstrates the large number of children, particularly girls, that constructed gender as a potential source of discrimination in some aspects of adult work. The second section examines the various discourses children drew upon in their explanations, and the ways in which they explained their responses. It is argued that children could apply their knowledge of gender issues to that of adult work, and that many drew on discourses of equal opportunity to present discrimination in adult work as unfair.

This insightful book is ideal for students, researchers and policy makers wanting a sound overview of the critical issues of gender in lifelong learning. Asking pertinent questions relating to discourses on policy, the authors offer the reader a rare view of lifelong learning from a gender-focused perspective, filling a gap in the literature and moving current debate on into new areas. Questions addressed include: To what extent can the policy discourses and institutional contexts of lifelong learning be seen as masculinised and/or feminised? What are the gender implications of lifelong learning policy? In what ways are learners' identities constructed through lifelong learning? Does lifelong learning provide opportunities to challenge or transgress gender binaries? What are the implications for practice?

British Chinese identities remain under-theorized within sociology and the sociology of education – and yet they offer a potentially interesting angle to debates around the (re)production of privileges/inequalities given the growing phenomenon of Chinese educational 'success'. British Chinese pupils' educational success is especially interesting given the 'working-class' positionings of many Chinese families in Britain. In this article we explore the utility of Bourdieuian-influenced theories of social class as a lens through which to examine the identities, educational experiences and achievement of British Chinese pupils. In so doing, we aim to extend existing class theories through a more detailed consideration of the racialized context of class. We suggest that British Chinese families can be read as employing particular forms of family capital (cultural, social and economic), together with a diasporic discourse of 'Chinese valuing of education', to promote educational achievement. However, structural inequalities/injustices remain key concerns.

The Handbook of Gender and Education brings together leading scholars on gender and education to provide an up-to-date and broad-ranging guide to the field. It is a comprehensive overview of different theoretical positions on equity issues in schools. The contributions cover all sectors of education from early years to higher education; curriculum subjects; methodological and theoretical perspectives; and gender identities in education. Each chapter reviews, synthesises and provides a critical interrogation of key contemporary themes in education. This approach ensures that the book will be an indispensable source of reference for a wide range of readers: students, academics and practitioners. The first section of the Handbook, Gender Theory and Methodology, outlines the various (feminist) perspectives on researching and exploring gender and education. The section critiques the notion of gender as a category in educational research and considers recent trends, evident especially in the gender and underachievement debates, to locate gender difference solely within biology. This section provides the broad background upon which the issues and debates in the other sections can be situated. Section two, Gender and Education, considers the differing ways in which gender has been shown to impact upon the opportunities and experiences of pupils/students, teachers and other adults in the different sectors of education. It also includes a chapter on single-sex schooling. Section three, Gender and School Subjects, comprises chapters that cover gender issues within the teaching and learning of particular school subjects (for example, maths, literacy, and science). It also includes topics such as sex education and assessment. The chapters in section four, Gender, identity and educational sites, address up-to-date issues which have a long history in terms of explorations into gender and educational opportunities. More recent inclusions in the debates, such as disability, sexuality, and masculinities are discussed alongside the more traditional concerns of ′race′, social class and femininities. The final section, Working in Schools and Colleges, illuminates the working lives of teachers and academics. The chapters cover such topics as school culture, career progression and development, and the gendered identities of professionals within educational institutions. The contributors to this book have been selected by the editors as authorities in their specific area of gender and education and are drawn from the international scholarly community.

Rising tuition fees in England have been accompanied by a policy mandate for universities to widen participation by attracting students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This article focuses on one such group of high achieving students and their responses to rising tuition fees within the context of their participation in an outreach scheme at a research-intensive university in the UK. Our findings suggest that rather than being deterred from attending university as a result of fee increases, these young people demonstrated a detailed and fairly sophisticated understanding of higher education provision as a stratified and marketised system and justified fees within a discourse of 'private good.' Our analysis situates their 'risk' responses within the discursive tensions of the fees/widening participation mandate. We suggest that this tension highlights an intensified commodification of the relationship between higher education institutions and potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds in which widening participation agendas have shifted towards recruitment exercises. We argue that an ongoing effect of this shift has resulted in increased instrumentalism and a narrowing of choices for young people faced with the task of seeking out 'value for money' in their degrees whilst concurrently engaging in a number of personalised strategies aimed at compensating for social disadvantage in a system beset by structural inequalities.