This paper examines how high levels of social-cultural connectedness and academic excellence, inflected by gender and social class, constitute a particular school habitus of "assured optimism" at an elite Scottish girls' school. In Bourdieuian terms, Dalrymple is a "forcing ground" for the "intense cultivation"…

Privileged benefaction in elite schools and the moral dilemmas, contradictions and power politics involved are the focus of this paper. The notion of "the gift" provides our analytical lens. We concentrate on two girls' schools--one in South Africa and one in England. These were both built, in various ways, on the British model of…

This article examines the overall strength, the qualitative pattern, and the evolution over time of gender segregation in higher education across eight European countries. Although previous studies have focused primarily on the divide between humanistic and scientific fields, this work indicates that this divide accounts for no more than half of…

In this paper we offer a unique contribution to understandings of schooling as a site for the production of social class difference. We bring together the rich body of work that has been conducted on middle-class educational identities, with explorations of the centrality of the feminine in representations of class difference from the field of…

The long-standing relationship between social disadvantage and poor educational outcomes continues to preoccupy educational policy-makers, with teachers at the front line of the ongoing struggle. Across the range of equity concerns, gender may be noted as either qualifying disadvantage or compounding it, but the meaning of gender as a simple…

This article focuses on the concerns expressed by three female Muslim educators who are support staff at an English comprehensive school. Consistent with the debates associated with multiculturalism, group rights and feminism, the article illuminates spaces of gender constraint and possibility within the discourses shaping these women's lives…

This article is about the educational work of governesses on Australia's remote cattle and sheep stations. These stations occupy vast tracts of land in the outback, and form part of global food supply chains exporting meat to countries around the world. The article explores the nature of governesses' work, the boundaries they negotiate…

In this paper we examine the factors contributing to gender inequality in secondary schooling in India by critically reviewing the government's secondary education policy. Drawing on the findings of a study in rural Gujarat, we couple this analysis with an examination of the gendered dynamics that restrict girls' ability to fully benefit…

In the contemporary scholarly discourse, the under-representation of women in science is often explained by the phenomenon of women "in the pipeline". The pipeline carries a flow from one stage to another, and the flow of women diminishes between the stages. Based on the literature and qualitative studies, it can be inferred that one of…

Transitions from education to work constitute a distinct set of situations where discrimination is likely to occur. Gender beliefs generally disadvantage women, and when coupled with beliefs regarding parental responsibility, tend to heavily disadvantage mothers. Yet we suggest that professional credentials create a divided labour market, with…

Recent decades have seen a dramatic expansion in the educational attainment and occupational opportunities of German women. Both the educational and occupational positions of the mothers and those of their daughters are continuously changing across cohorts. Our study aims to detect the probability of daughters to experience maternal-line…

The paper examines processes of cultural production and reproduction among members of the elite and upper-middle classes. Drawing on findings from a study of private education in England, it explores the utility of a conceptual framework to examine how practices in and across different sites may be reproductive of various forms of…

Based on surveys undertaken by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (France's National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) and by the Direction de l'évaluation de la prospective et de la performance (Directorate of Evaluation, Forecasting and Performance), this article examines the evolution of…

This article presents a review of "Making socialists: Mary Bridges Adams and the fight for knowledge and power, 1855-1939," by Jane Martin. Jane Martin has explored the history of late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth century-British women educational activists in numerous publications over the past two decades. Her first book, "Women and…

The prevalence of women in the teaching profession has been claimed by various scholars to be responsible for the low school performance among boys. Based on this claim there have been widespread calls for increasing the share of male teachers as a means of improving boys' school performance. There is, however, very little empirical evidence…