Publisher's Synopsis
Sheila Riddell uses detailed case studies of two secondary schools to examine the relationship between curriculum choice and gender identity among 14 year old pupils making their first choices about what subjects to pursue at exam level. She reveals a two way process. Pupils' decisions on what subjects to take are influenced by how they perceive themselves in gender terms, and the curriculum once chosen reinforces their sense of gender division. Sheila Riddell looks at the influences on pupils at this stage in their lives from peers, family and the labour market as well as from teachers. She argues that the belief in freedom of choice and school neutrality espoused by many teachers can become in itself an important factor in the reproduction of gender divisions, and that unless the introduction of the National Curriculum is accompanied by systematic efforts to eradicate sexism from the hidden curriculum, it will fail in its aim of creating greater equality of educational opportunity among the sexes.;This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics of curriculum studies and sociology of education.
