ABSTRACT
Critics of the girls and self-esteem literature argue that it often tends to ‘blame the victim’, treating girls as if their low self-esteem is their fault and offering them compensatory ‘remedial’ programs (see Kenway and Willis, 1986). This chapter offers a short case history of an approach to school reform in the Australian state of Victoria which, in part, is informed by the self-esteem literature but which includes no hint of this ‘victim’ or ‘compensatory’ mentality. In this case girls’ self-esteem is recognized and confronted as a social problem, as a school administrative and structural problem and as a curriculum problem. The value of conceiving of the selfesteem issue in this way will be demonstrated, as will some of the many difficulties and dilemmas which such an approach involves.
