How Schools Deal with Expectations of Gender Equality

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How Schools Deal with Expectations of Gender Equality

Abstract

The article looks at the implementation of “National Daughters Day” in a selected canton in Switzerland and investigates how schools as organizations deal with expectations of educational reform and equal opportunity policy geared toward gender equality. The article draws on the sociology of critique and justification (Boltanski and Thévenot) to get a conceptual grasp on the heterogeneous positions adopted in matters of gender equality. We analyze interviews with school administrators and teaching staff who are responsible for organizing Daughters Day and with its initiators at the cantonal level. The results show that actor interpretations and justifications derive from the orders of justification found in the civic, domestic, and industrial world, which are combined into formulas of compromise in multiple ways.

Keywords

  • gender equity
  • school
  • organization
  • school reform
  • justification

Authors

Links

Publication information

Editors:

Brigitte Liebig, René Levy, Birgit Sauer, Alfonso Sousa-Poza

Publisher:

Swiss Sociological Association and Seismo Press, Swiss Journal of Sociology, Vol. 40, Issue 2, July 2014, «Gender Equality Policies in Switzerland», pp. 215-236

Languages:

English

Media Type:

PDF

City:

Zurich

Year:

2014

Disciplines:

Research labels:

Education – vocational training

Subjects:

Education Sciences, Sociology

Genres:

Article