Women, work and schooling

It seems not unfair to say of the British system of schooling that differences between the education of females and the education of males have long been recognized as existing, but that it has not been realized until comparatively recently that such differences in the educational experiences of women and men may be seen as problematic because they may give rise to contrasting educational achievements between the sexes and prepare each sex for a quite different style of life. The relationship between gender, education and work in capitalist societies is, of course, as Wolpe has pointed out, much more complex than this, involving many factors whose analysis lies outside the scope of this volume. But what the collection of views presented here attempts to do is to show how, in a variety of educational settings and establishments but also in the context of entry to the labour market, the category of gender, which may be defined as, “the psychological and cultural definitions of the dimensions “masculine” and “feminine”’, ⁽¹⁾ is made relevant in the education of women, is influential in structuring their actions, beliefs, values and life-chances and provides them with a set of contradictions about their role in society.