Gender doesn’t matter: Why women and gender are ignored in research on elementary level teachers
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While it is arguable that gender matters in education, its relevance in educational research on teachers is less clear. Prompted in part by Acker’s (1995-1996) call for additional research focus on gender and women in education, the authors ask «does gender still matter in US-based education with regard to women teachers?». We affirm that gender does matter in a conceptual sense, but our extensive critical review of the research literature suggests the inverse: that US-based scholars doing empirical work in education do not appear to value gender as a category for examining the experiences of female teachers. We concluded that current research foregoes gender in favour of other social categories and emphasizes research on girls and male teachers over research on women teachers. The paper ends with recommendations for a more robust handling of gender in research on women in education.
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