ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the poor track record which vocational education has had with respect to the promotion of gender equality. It deals with a consideration of official policy in the period running up to the Second World War and highlights the tension between liberal and vocational ideals. The chapter provides a historical backdrop to the introduction of Technical and Vocational Education Initiative in 1982 and shows that given the prior track record on equal opportunities within the world of education. It explores the impact of the Sex Discrimination Act on an educational world slow to take action to challenge gender inequalities, and also highlights the eventual response of the Department of Education and Science. The chapter looks at a series of key policy documents which were written in the two decades after the war, but which shared many of the pre-war assumptions concerning the assumed ‘natural’ interests of boys and girls respectively.
