ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a few of the many narratives that circulate that help explain our experiences with gender and education. Some of these narratives are brand new and are providing counter narratives for young girls and boys to draw from as they attempt to learn how to perform their gendered identity. The term gender refers to socioculturally constructed expectations associated with a particular sex. Some performances we read as "feminine", others as "masculine", and still others as "androgynous". Like any other topic, today's debates over gender and education tend to reflect differences in philosophies and economic-political ideologies. The chapter explores the range of narratives about gender found in today's conversations about schools, it likes to first present some basic information. The majority of Americans have assumed that coeducation was good for girls and that higher education was safe for women, but narratives suggesting otherwise were prominent among a large minority.
