Gendered geographies of schooling: rights; subjectivities; bodies; and labour

This chapter highlights the importance of gender in geographies of education, concentrating on four forms of research on schooling, as this is a key arena of academic and policy concern. First, it focuses on girls’ and boys’ right to schooling, investigating the factors that shape gendered patterns of access, and whilst it highlights girls’ resilience in attending school, it also points to the limits of educational qualifications. Second, it examines gendered subjectivities, considering how schooling shapes girls’ and boys’ gendered identities, in intersection with other social differences, in both contemporary and historical contexts. Third, it considers boys’ and girls’ sexed bodies, weighing both how gendered social mores shape their movement to school and in the playground, and how girls encounter material and emotional difficulties around safety and seemly bodily presentation. Fourth, it explores the parental labour, and especially maternal femininities, that support children in school and extend into wider society.<p></p>