National Gender Equity and Schooling Policy in Australia - Struggles for a Non-identitarian Feminist Politics

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine

This paper tracks the development of gender equity and schooling policy in Australia from the National Policy on the Education of Girls in 1987 to current concerns about boys’ educational underperformance. It argues that feminist-informed equity policy has been undermined by economic rationalism and anti-feminist discourses. Using Nancy Fraser’s framework of distributive and cultural gender justice and nonidentitarian feminist politics, the study critiques the limits of affirmative gender-binary reform and highlights emerging gender justice spaces that enable disruptive (pro)feminist activism.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Policy shifts in gender equity and schooling

Feminism, the state, and equity discourse

From girls’ disadvantage to boys’ underperformance

Analytical framework and gender injustice

National Gender Equity and Schooling Policy in Australia: Struggles for a Non-identitarian Feminist Politics Amanda Keddie Griffith University Abstract This paper tracks the development of gender equity and schooling policy in Australia from the National Policy on the Education of Girls in 1987, to current policy concerns with boys’ educational underperformance. The paper’s key focus is on the ways in which feminist informed equity policy has been undermined by broader imperatives of economic rationalism and anti-feminist discourses. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s understandings of distributive and cultural gender justice and her notion of a nonidentitarian feminist politics, the paper critically examines the ways in which such imperatives have re-articulated equity and schooling concerns. Through these lenses, the limitations of the affirmative gender binary politics and remedies that have dominated gender and schooling reform in Australia are highlighted. The paper concludes with an illumination of the gender justice spaces currently being mobilised in Australian schools. Such spaces, it is argued, fostered within a context of increasing autonomy and self-management for schools, are providing avenues for creative and disruptive (pro)feminist activism. Introduction The significant ideological shifts in gender equity and schooling policies in Australia, over the past thirty or so years, have been variously described. For O’Donovan (2006), they constitute a move from feminist difference to masculinist crisis; for Gaskell and Taylor (2003), liberation and sexism to boys and social justice; and for Yates (1998) a progression from constructions of girls as disadvantaged, “other” and diverse to a focus on power, sex and gender. Reflecting developments in gender theory, research and politics these shifts have generated a range of different ways of understanding and remedying gender disadvantage. Such shifts and their various effects reflect a highly contested and complex policy terrain marked by changes in gender theorising; The Australian Educational Researcher, Volume 36, Number 2, August 2009 •21 AMANDA KEDDIE feminism’s close but far from untroubled relationship with the state; the contested agendas of federalism and economic and social reform; and associated shifts in public and equity discourse (Kenway, 1990; Henry & Taylor, 1993; Lingard, 2003) . Within this context “competing needs and demands” have been “refracted, mediated and translated” into gender equity and schooling policies (Sharp & Broombill, 1988, p. 29) . In Australia, this policy story began with the public visibility and impact of the women’s movement and state support for feminism from the early 1970s to the late 1980s which enabled women’s issues to be addressed (Eisenstein, 1996; Taylor, 2003; Yates 1993; Kenway 1990, 1997; Daws 1997) . During this time institutionalised or state feminism had a major impact on the development of policies targeted towards greater equity for girls and women. Such feminism, however, constructed girls, boys and equity in particular ways and was variously effective in terms of how issues of difference were dealt with in policy and how such issues were received in terms of broader socio-political trends (Hayes, 1998) . For example, the liberal feminist agenda associated with Girls, Schooling and Society (1975) was particularly effective in making visible areas of specific concern for girls especially given that the broader progressive political climate at the time was conducive to hearing such concern. However, such politics tended to homogenise gender difference and inferiorise a passive narrative of femininity (see Yates, 1998) . Subsequent policy developments, although sensitive to how issues of difference impacted on girls’ experiences of educational disadvantage, were constrained by other circumstances. The National Policy on the Education of Girls in Australian Schools (1987) for example, was implemented during

FAQs

What time span does the paper cover for gender equity and schooling policy in Australia?

It follows policy development from 1987 onward, starting with the National Policy on the Education of Girls and moving to contemporary concerns about boys’ educational underperformance.

What does the paper identify as undermining feminist-informed equity policy?

It points to broader imperatives of economic rationalism alongside anti-feminist discourses that re-articulate equity and schooling concerns.

How does the paper interpret gender justice and policy reform in Australia?

Using Nancy Fraser’s distributive and cultural gender justice and nonidentitarian feminist politics, it critiques affirmative gender-binary politics and highlights gender justice spaces that support creative and disruptive (pro)feminist activism.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine