Call for Chapters for the Edited Volume

Questioning Gender Politics: Contextualising the Future of Education and Schooling in Uncertain Times

Schooling continues to be a very important site where gender relations and sexual politics take place (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Mac an Ghaill, 1996; Haywood & Mac an Ghaill, 1996; Lesko, 2000; Renold, 2005; Ringrose and Renold, 2012; Mendes et al, 2022). This book explores the role of education amidst persisting gender inequalities in education and schooling. This book will present theoretical explorations, case studies and emerging research mapping out some of the oppressive sexist and patriarchal cultures affecting the educational lives of young people today in educational settings and across various national contexts. The book will also offer an opportunity to host an international forum on contemporary thinking on education and the inequalities that characterise processes of education around the world. The chapters will provide a modern look into education, looking at pressing gender and sexuality issues in educational sectors, including schooling. In previous works a critical feminist approach has been suggested for education (Weiler and Arnot, 1993; Walby 1997, Ng et al, 1995; Ringrose 2013), yet, it is important to continue to explore the shifting issues and concerns of the feminist theoretical debates in order to help shape future feminist agendas better suited for our changing international educational landscapes.

Crucially, the book also poses critical questions needed to frame education differently: Can schools be redefined to be more inclusive? Should the school be more accountable for instilling a sense of political agency in students so that students feel confident in challenging inequalities? Are there any ways in which schools can open up more opportunities to challenge toxic student and staff cultures? What modes of student collaboration and resistance enable an ethical response to the inequitable distribution of common rights at school? What concepts can be utilised beyond traditional concepts to better address gender inequalities in schooling? The book seeks to pose these critical questions and through its contributions help rethink education and learning beyond the curriculum, and in a way that appeals both to modern schooling, and our popular imagination on education.

Emergent inequalities in gender are associated with the interpretation of gender identities as binary opposites. This book will present scholarly challenges to these binaries which continue to uncritically construct idealised femininities and masculinities as the only possibilities to enact gender, and as necessarily oppositional. In doing this, the book is contributing to the discourse of, ‘deconstruction of binaries’, best understood through feminist scholarly research and theory (Kristeva 1981; Sedgwick, 2008; White et al, 2017; Youdell, 2006). Consequently, the book will develop its themes guided by some of the critical questions posed previously but with a focus on contemporary formations of gender identity.

In this way the book aims to illustrate how education is an important physical, material and ideological site for understanding and challenging stubborn gender inequalities. Contrary to postfeminist discourses that claim gender equity has been achieved and therefore feminism is redundant, the book positions itself within existing research outlining how gender issues and power cultures have in many cases changed from plain to more insidious inequalities (Ringrose and Epstein, 2015). The notion of education is also expanded in this book, with a focus on more alternative forms of education, such as, youth activisms, creative pedagogies and media research. The book will provide conceptual as well as pedagogical contributions which will help students and educators understand current debates and issues around gender, whilst also reflecting critically on the role of education in turbulent times.

Extended abstracts may be related to, but not necessarily limited to the following themes:

1. Feminist, material and affective ontologies in education
2. Heteronormative cultures in education
3. Innovative feminist pedagogies
4. Black feminisms in education
5. Gender activisms – case studies and empirical studies
6. Gender and sexual identities in education and schooling
7. Young people as agents of change
8. Acts of school feminisms
9. Gender and sexuality extra-curricular learning
10. Social media and digital activisms and education
11. Deconstructing institutional power relations
12. Problematising gender relations in education
13. New ontologies of gender and sexuality
14. Acts of school resistance as social justice
15. Repositioning extra-curricular learning in education
16. Emerging queer activisms in education
17. Theorisations against patriarchy in education

Extended abstracts of 700 to 1,000 words (inclusive of citations) are invited for selection; please email jbustillos-morales@brookes.ac.uk to submit your abstract. Submissions should be made in Word format by 1st July 2022. Please ensure the document has the following details.

1. Title of chapter
2. Theme under which chapter is submitted
3. Name of author/s
4. Institutional affiliation
5. Email address – with designated corresponding author, if there are multiple authors
6. Brief Bio (max. 250 words)
7. Any other additional links or URLs relevant to authors’ bio and chapters (i.e social media campaigns, websites etc)

Suggested timeline: Call for Chapters submission: July 2022 Acceptance of contributions: August 2022 First submission of full chapters: February 2023 Editor’s first feedback on full chapters: April 2023 Reviewed chapters sent back to editor: June 2023 Editor’s second feedback: July 2023 Second submission of full chapters: September 2023 Full manuscript sent to publisher: December 2023

Editor details: Dr Jessie Bustillos Morales, institutional email: jbustillos-morales@brookes.ac.uk – @jessiejwl Senior Lecturer in Education, Oxford Brookes University, orcid: https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-3355-6617

List of references: 

Baer, H. (2016) ‘Redoing feminism: Digital activism, body politics, and neoliberalism’, Feminist media studies, 16(10), 17-34.

Carey, R., Akiva, T., Abdellatif, H. and Daughtry, K. (2020) ‘And school won’t teach me that!: Urban youth activism program as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning’, Journal of Youth Studies, 24(7), 941-960.

Connell, R.W. (1996) ‘Teaching the boys: new research on masculinity, and gender strategies for schools’, Teachers College Record, 98(1), 206–235.

Haywood, C. & Mac an Ghaill, M. (1996) Schooling masculinities, in: M. Mac An Ghaill (Ed.) Understanding Masculinities. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Keddie, A. (2021) Engaging Boys in Activism: Issues of discomfort and emotion, Gender and Education, 33(2), 171-185.

Keller, J. (2019) “Oh, she’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the platform vernacular of Girls’ social media feminisms, Social Media + Society, 6(4), 44-57.

Keller, J. (2015) Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age. London: Routledge. Kristeva, J. (1981) Women’s Time. Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 47(5), 633–652.

Lesko, N. (Ed.) (2000) Masculinities at School. London: Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.

Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men: masculinities, sexualities, and schooling. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Mac an Ghaill, M (1996) ‘What about the boys? Schooling, class and crisis masculinity’, Sociological Review, 44(2), 381–397.

Mendes, K., Horeck, T. and Ringrose, J. (2022) Sexual violence in contemporary educational contexts, Gender and Education, 34(2), 129-133, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2022.2032537

Ng, R., Staton, P. and Scane, J. (1995) Anti-Racism, Feminism and Critical Approaches to Education. London: Praeger Publications.

Renold, E. (2005) Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring childrens’ gender and sexual relations in the primary school. London: Routledge Falmer.

Ringrose, J., & Epstein, D. (2015). Postfeminist Educational Media Panics and the Problem/ Promise of ‘Successful Girls’. Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (pp. 188-204). Macmillan Education UK. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-31069-9_11

Ringrose, J. (2013) Postfeminist education? : Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. Foundations and Futures of Education. London: Routledge.

Ringrose, J. and Renold, E. (2012) Slut-shaming, girl power and ‘sexualisation’: thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls, Gender and Education, 24(3), 333-343, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2011.645023.

White, R. D., Wyn, J. and Robards. B. (2017) Youth and Society. 4th ed. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Sedgwick, E. K. (2008) Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press. Walby, (1997) Gender Transformations. London: Routledge.

Weiler, K. and Arnot, M. (1993) Feminism and Social Justice in Education. London: Routledge.

Youdell, D. (2006) Subjectivation and Performative Politics – Butler Thinking Althusser and Foucault: Intelligibility, Agency and the Raced–Nationed–Religioned Subjects of Education, British Journal of Sociology of Education 27(4), 511–528.

Yuen, S. and Tang, G. (2021) Instagram and social capital: Youth activism in a networked movement, Social Movement Studies, 10(1), 110-123.