ABSTRACT
Few recent sociological analyses of the New Right in the United Kingdom have addressed the interconnections between the rise of the radical right and critical feminist traditions in education. A surprising fact perhaps, given the evident hostility of Conservative politicians to feminist and anti-racist politics and their explicit references to the ending of the ‘age of egalitarianism’.1 Sophisticated analyses, such as those by Whitty (1989), Dale (1989) and Ball (1990), offer us insights into the various discourses and ideological tendencies of the Conservative government and its party advisors. From their perspective, we are encouraged to see education policy as ‘infused with economic, political and ideological contradictions’ (Ball, 1990, p. 211); a site of struggle between different groups for domination, prestige or economic advantage where the most significant context is the restructuring of capitalism. As Stephen Ball argues:
The (National) curriculum…is a particular focus for contradiction and struggle. The economic provides a context and a ‘vocabulary of motives’ for reform. The overall repositioning and restructuring of education in relation to production is evident. (p. 211, my addition)
No reference here to patriarchal ideologies, nor indeed to the logic of patriarchy. The New Right is represented instead as a set of political responses to the necessity of ‘restoring authority’ and ‘responding to the contemporary logic of capitalist development’ (ibid, p. 213). As Dale (1989) earlier explained, this logic implies that educational systems are structured around three problems:
direct support for the capital accumulation process; the provision of a wider social context not inimical to the continuing capital accumulation and the legitimation of the work of the state and the education system. (p. 95)
Yet, given such emphasis on the effects of economic formations on educational discourses, it seems extraordinary that feminist and ‘race’ politics are so absent
from such sociological accounts. It is surely hard to deny the impact of the women’s movement and black community politics on the post-war economy and the considerable increase in married women’s economic activity on economic, familial and cultural spheres. Yet again, it seems male radical sociologists in the United Kingdom have failed to address gender relations and, as a result, have avoided explanations of the rise of the New Right based upon ‘moral/traditional/ familial ideologies and policies’ (ten Tusscher, 1986). According to Kenway (1990), mainstream policy analysts
…have rather arrogantly failed to notice that they (most often men) write largely for and about men. Insensitive to matters of gender, they have little or no apparent consciousness of how gender inflected are their theories, concerns and interests. (Further) many mainstream/ malestream policy analysts seem unaware of an increasing body of feminist scholarship which both exposes many of the limitations of the presuppositions of the policy field and brings matters of gender into the foreground. (p. 7)
For Jane Kenway, the solution is to develop ‘gender and educational policy analysis’ as a new field of study. This field, she argues, already exists insofar as one can find a diversity of research literature which focusses upon state policymaking. Such literature includes, for example, analyses of the gendered assumptions behind government policies and studies of the impact of the women’s movement and feminist struggles on state policy-making processes. Contained within this new field are studies of the success and the limitations of legislation which attempts to promote equal opportunities for women. Particularly in Australia, state administrative apparatuses through which such equality policies are implemented, are being analyzed by feminists. In this context, reports on the ways in which feminists have been incorporated within the state bureaucracy as ‘femocrats’ are especially instructive.2
