“Back to the Backlash?” Primary Practitioner Discourses of Resistance to Gender-inclusive Policies

Abstract

In this article I discuss how observed discourses of resistance indicate the exclusion of the standpoint of primary school practitioners from feminist theorization, as well as the exclusion of feminist perspectives from primary school practice. I do so from a feminist position which sees the modernist policy framework of the gender-inclusive curriculum as still having transformative potential in the postmodern era, whilst also perceiving the need for much more specific analysis of the varied discourses of resistance. The data is selected from a wider longitudinal case study that investigated the conceptualization and enactment of a gender-inclusive curriculum policy in the state of Victoria in Australia since 1975. I focus this discussion on interviewed “exemplars” who observed primary practitioner resistance to gender inclusive curriculum policy. I conclude that this case study empirically demonstrates the failure of “backlash” in accounting for the significant specificities of primary practitioner discourses of resistance.