(En)gendering responsibility: a critical news analysis of Argentina's education reform, 2001–2002

Abstract

Education reform continues around the globe, though questioned and critiqued in relation to goals of democratizing educational decision-making. Newspapers are one site of contestation and negotiation where struggles over global reform discourses are contextualized in ‘obvious’ and ‘natural’ local language. In this article, I argue that gender discourses are a powerful heuristic employed to push particular education agendas and particularly gendered ones that do not necessarily reflect education reform goals for democratizing educational decision-making or improving equity. I analyzed Argentina's education reform in two national newspapers from 1 November 2001 to 1 November 2002 to reveal the role of gender in reform mediation at the national level. The findings and their interpretation illustrated how educational institutions and actors were situated in a gendered hierarchy with responsibilities and authority. Evoking masculine and feminine roles, representations, and identities in everyday ‘natural’ language lent a familiarity to seemingly abstract and neutral global education reform goals, replicating context-specific educational decision-making processes.