This paper proposes a new theory of Conditional Social Equality (CSE) which in some ways challenges the theory of cumulative advantage/disadvantage (CAD), which postulates that inequalities and social divisions necessarily increase over time. Using evidence from informal learning groups in Men's Sheds in three countries, we conclude that some…

This article rejects the notion that schools have become excessively feminised spaces that are failing to adequately provide for the educational needs of boys. This construction of schools as feminised has provided the impetus for the development of what have become known as "boy-friendly" pedagogies. Unfortunately such pedagogies work…

This study focused on a population of female engineering students, probing the influences of their secondary school experience on their choice to pursue an engineering course of study at university. The motivating question is: Do unique opportunities exist in an all-female secondary school mathematics classroom, which impact a young woman's…

This paper derives from a two-year ethnographic study conducted in single-gendered classes in two Tasmanian government coeducational schools in socio-economically disadvantaged areas. These schools specifically adopted proactive strategies to address the educational disengagement of boys whose social behaviour affected their own education and that…

Pedagogical change is posited as a crafting process constituted by the relational activity of social and material actors. A case study was used to investigate how pedagogical change becomes enacted in everyday practices in an independent boys' school in Australia. In comparison to a scripted implementation plan, the pedagogical change process was…

The current debate about boys' education risks taking us back decades in terms of understanding the significance of gender in relation to education. Of particular concern here is the tendency within such debates to rely on dichotomous understandings of gender which reinscribe essentialist understandings of both "girls" and…

The gender agenda in many North American, Western European, and Australasian countries has undergone a "boy turn" in the past decade amid growing concerns about boys' apparent "underachievement" relative to girls. One aspect of this turn has been the resurrection of interest in single-sex classes in coeducational public state…

Critical reanalysis of a previous Australian study comparing the effects of single-sex mathematics and mixed-sex mathematics instruction on students in grades seven and eight suggests that the randomly assigned class-type intervention had relatively little effect on mathematics achievement or attitudes, and that at least some effects favored…

Reports research on a pilot project in Western Australia in which single-sex science and mathematics classes were begun in 10 coeducational secondary schools. The program involved professional development for participating teachers and systematic monitoring. Analyzes teachers' reactions to the program and major issues concerning student outcomes,…