Overview Background ]
Since 1993 in Australia, the national directions in gender equity have been guided by the Australian Education Council's National Action Plan for the Education of Girls 1993-97, which has only recently been supplemented by the MCEETYA Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools. This national framework is built around the following five strategic directions for action.
A specific feature of this moment in the history of gender equity reform in Australian schools is the transition from what was predominantly a focus on the education of girls to one that is more fully inclusive of boys. Much of what has been learnt from the focus on the education of girls is now informing the concern with boys and the narrowness of their education. This progression which was reflected in the National Action Plan for the Education of Girls 1993-97 is an even more prominent feature of the new national framework.
Gender equity awareness
In Australia, the awareness of inequities in education based on the sex of individual students and what needs to be done to make education more equitable, has been evolving over a period of several decades. The five strategic directions described above, which were developed by a national taskforce of people closely involved with gender equity, are built on the lessons from this past and indicate important directions for the future.
In the light of the strategic directions described above, this study has provided a valuable insight into the level of awareness and thinking on gender in a number of schools across Australia. In broad terms, what is happening in these schools relates well to the strategic directions identified in the national framework, Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools. Key areas that emerged in this study included work on the interface between gender and violence, harassment and bullying, the relationship between gender, achievement and participation levels, and on how masculinity is defined and its impact on boys' under-achievement. The approach to these issues was often based on an awareness of gender as a social construct, a concept which is the cornerstone of the national framework.
Beyond the schools in this study, which were specifically selected for their work in gender equity, a very current and comprehensive account of gender equity awareness and activity in Australian education can be found in the recent ACER report Gender and School Education (Collins C., et al. 1996). This study which was conducted under the auspices of MCEETYA was specifically commissioned to gather baseline data on performance in gender equity at a number of levels, namely, school system, teacher and student. The report presents the findings at a national level, by State and territory, by sector, and by rural and urban location.
For more details on how the current study relates to the National Framework, and the findings of Gender and School Education, see the concluding section This Study ... and Beyond.