ABSTRACT
In this chapter we, as feminists, address the question of how to research gender equality and schooling. The focus is especially on changes in schooling with reference to equal opportunities, either pupil performances/achievements or equal treatment in school of pupils and teachers. The particular issue is how to develop and design research to map and explain changes in education and particularly those with respect to gender equality from a feminist perspective. Our twin interests are in conceptual matters around equality and research. Both these are complex matters and are not easily defined. In respect of equality, we are concerned to look at the relationships between men and women, boys and girls in terms of educational performances/achievements/outcomes and the processes of equal treatment within school-both the formal and informal curriculum. Our discussion draws on a modest, year-long, research project funded by the Equal Opportunities Commission for England and Wales (EOC) that we have recently completed, which looked at educational reforms and gender equality in schooling over a 10-year period from 1984-1994. We contextualize this research project in the wider arena of commissioned and grant-funded research in Britain today and feminist research perspectives. We argue that policy-oriented research such as this one is too limited to explore the reasons for the cultural shifts in gender equality and we speculate on those reasons.
