Through the example of what is now known in a large part of the Anglo-saxon world as the boys' underachievement debate, this paper explores the construction of gender issues, which underpins educational policies in England and France. It argues that the formation of particular questions as "policy issues" bears limited relation to what…

The debate in the UK about gender equity and equal opportunities for girls and boys has been "captured", in the last two decades, by an overriding concern with the issue of boys' apparent under-achievement. More recently, however, there has been a reaction to essentialist approaches related to "boy-friendly" pedagogies and…