Possibilities in the Boy Turn? Comparative Lessons from Australia and Iceland

Abstract

Recognising that there is now a globalised educational discourse about “failing boys” circulating in the privileged nations of the global north, this article provides a comparative perspective on educational policy responses to the “boy turn” in Australia and Iceland. Specificities of the responses to the boy turn in the two societies offer interesting insights into this policy domain. For instance, Australian policy has been state‐centric with the media playing a significant role in backlash politics and with federal government funding interventions for boys, and Iceland was the only nation in which girls outperformed boys in all areas of mathematics in the PISA 2003 study. The article concludes by arguing the need for a renewed feminist and profeminist agenda to challenge dominant constructions of masculinity and for the establishment of a more equal gender order.