ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the historical and political context of equal opportunities policy and adult education for women in the Netherlands in the seventies and eighties. This is followed by a brief description of the origins of the adult education school that was the subject of the case study. The chapter looks in more detail at the concepts of subject positions and school identities. It then discusses the main conclusion of the study, the fact that despite policy intentions, gender equality has only partially been achieved. The chapter makes a plea for a broad feminist policy in schools. Such a policy must be aimed at identity politics based on a non-monolithic approach to the category ‘woman’. It must be able to deal with the way categories such as ‘gender’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘age’ are negotiated and lived in schools. The school identities and subject positions are measured on sixteen 7-point scales.
