ABSTRACT
The Republic, written in 411 or 412 BC, consists of a dialogue between Socrates and a friend, Glaucon. The Renaissance, with its rediscovery of humanism and a revival of interest in Greek and Roman texts, was a stimulus for the founding of grammar schools offering a broad curriculum. Social and political changes in the first half of the twentieth century did much to improve the educational chances of women. In fact, the word 'gender', of course, includes both sexes and attention is being increasingly paid to studying why boys are underachieving in relation to girls. The Education Reform Act of 1988, when schools could opt of local education control, and the growing diversity of types of secondary schools encouraged by successive governments of both major political parties, has implications for gender education as has the introduction of a National Curriculum into schools.
