Feminist Critical Policy Analysis I

This text sets out to challenge the traditional power basis of the policy decision makers in education. It contests that others who have an equal right to be consulted and have their opinions known have been silenced, declared irrelevant, postponed and otherwise ignored. Policies have thus been formed and implemented without even a cursory feminist critical glance. The chapters in this text illustrate how to incorporate critical and feminist lenses and thus create policies to meet the lived realities, the needs, aspirations and values of women and girls. A particular focus is the primary and secondary sectors of education.

Catherine Marshall is a Professor of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, with expertise in policy formulation and implementation, qualitative inquiry, education careers and gender issues. She is the Past President (1 990-92) of the Politics of Education Association. She was the author (with Fred Wirt and Doug Mitchell) of Culture and Education Policy in the American States (Falmer Press, 1989); The Assistant Principal: Leadership Choices and Challenges (Corwin, 1991 ); The Administrative Career: Problem-solving for Entry, Equity and Endurance (Corwin, 1994); Designing Qualitative Research (Sage, 1 995) and editor of The New Politics of Race and Gender (Falmer Press, 1993).

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- 1 Dismantling and Reconstructing Policy Analysis Catherine Marshall -- Part I: The Legitimized Formal Arenas of Policy -- 2 Gender, Ethnicity and the Inclusive Curriculum: An Episode in the Policy Framing of Australian Education /Lyn Yates -- 3 Gender Policies in American Education: Reflections on Federal Legislation and Action /Nelly P. Stromquist -- 4 Gender and the Reports: The Case of the Missing Piece /Lois Weis -- 5 Strategic Feminist Research on Gender Equality and Schooling in Britain in the 1990s /Miriam David, Gaby Weiner and Madeleine Arnot -- Part II: The Politics of Silence and Ambiguity -- 6 From Software Design to Classroom Practice: An Australian Case Study of the Gendered Production, Distribution and Acquisition of Computing Knowledge /Parlo Singh -- 7 Decentering Silences /Troubling Irony: Teen Pregnancy's Challenge to Policy Analysis /Wanda S. Pillow -- 8 Toward a Curriculum of Resiliency: Gender, Race, Adolescence and Schooling /Natalie Adams -- 9 Feminist Praxis as the Basis for Teacher Education: -- A Critical Challenge /Sandra Hollingsworth -- Part III: New Politics, New Policy -- 10 A Model for Gender-inclusive School Science: Lessons from Feminist Scholarship /Lesley H. Parker -- 11 Feminist Analysis of Sexual Harassment Policy: A Critique of the Ideal of Community /Julie Laible -- 12 Institutionalizing Women's Voices, Not Their Echoes, through Feminist Policy Analysis of Difference /Hanne B. Mawhinney -- 13 Improving Girls' Educational Outcomes /Joanna Wyn and Bruce Wilson -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.