The administration of feminism in education: revisiting and remembering narratives of gender equity and identity

Abstract

This article examines challenges in writing histories of feminist reforms in schooling and educational administration. The focus is gender equity reforms in Australian schools since the 1970s, looking at how those earlier interventions are now remembered, represented and forgotten, in policy memory and collective narratives. Such feminist endeavours were part of the policy landscape and the administration of schools during the 1970s and 80s. I argue that feminist agendas can also be examined as themselves sites for managing the conduct of teachers and students and for regulating new forms of identity and social relations. These paradoxical aspects of feminist reform are analysed through a Fo..