Diversity, Choice and Gender

Abstract

A review of much of the recent social scientific research on choice and marketisation is presented in this paper, from a critical and analytical perspective, to highlight how little of this research focuses on issues of gender equity. The paper then goes on to present evidence of the ways in which parental choice is frequently gendered, and experienced as a gender issue, by parents involved in what is essentially a choice process. This argument draws on evidence from two recently conducted research studies, one funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the other by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Evidence is also presented from a study, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission, of educational reform and gender equity in schools. All of this evidence demonstrates the salience of gender in educational policies and their implementation. In particular, it shows how mothers have the key involvement and responsibility for choosing schools and bringing up children, although this varies by family or school context. Our previous findings, that mothers were pre‐eminent in choosing schools, are modified for families that choose to invest in the private sector, where both parents are more likely to be involved. Given the changing patterns of examination performance between boys and girls at the end of secondary schooling, parents’ choices of secondary school are now differentiated on gendered lines. But none of these changing patterns of involvement and investment in education necessarily maps easily on to mothers’ or children's perspectives about education and schooling where these views of parental involvement have rarely been investigated. Thus, educational reform directed towards diversity and choice and improving educational standards has had contradictory and to some extent unexpected consequences, in particular in terms of gender and gender equity.