Gender, Education, and Society: The Limits and Possibilities of Feminist Reproduction

Theory
Author(s): Jo-Anne Dillabough
Source: Sociology of Education , Oct., 2003, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 376-379
Published by: American Sociological Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1519874

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 Gender, Education, and Society:
The Limits and Possibilities of Feminist
Reproduction Theory

Jo-Anne Dillabough
University of British Columbia
. ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~II III I I I I III I IIIIIII III

We have embodied the historical structures of

This being so, I briefly review the current
the masculine order in the form of uncon-
place of reproduction theory within larger
scious schemes of perception and apprecia-debates about gender in education, focusing
tion.... Breaking out of that circle lies in find-
on the following question: What are the
ing a practical strategy for objectifying ... the
major contributions and limitations of femi-
"categories of understanding" ... with which
nist reproduction theory to the study of gen-
we construct the world. (Bourdieu 1998:5)
der inequality in schools?
Bourdieu (1998) believed that questions In the late 1970s, British sociologists began
about the nature of masculine domina- to explore the role of education in reproduc-
ing class relations in the state. Influenced by
tion can be identified to greater or lesser
degrees in all social fields. However, he also such currents, feminists in education began
argued that masculine domination is the to address what Spender (1980) identified as
most influential in social institutions in which the "patriarchal paradigm'" of state educa-
the maintenance of the social order is a key tion and its reproductive processes, focusing
national project. Consequently, he pointed largely upon working-class girls' experiences.
particularly to education as a central ideolog- The key question that educational feminists
ical site for the reproduction of gender were faced with was this: To what degree
inequality. For nearly three decades, feminist does education function as an ideological
reproduction theorists have been centrally force that shapes girls' and women's experi-
concerned with the ways in which our "cat- ences of education? In answer to this ques-
egories of understanding" about sex and tion, Arnot (2002), a prominent British femi-
gender reproduce a fundamentally constant, nist reproduction theorist, sought to develop
if fluctuating, gendered division of labor, an analysis of "the ways in which schooling
embodied in public consciousness and assert- produces both classed and sexed subjects."
ed through class relations in education. They On this view, feminist reproduction theory
have also critiqued contemporary misconcep- offered an early challenge to liberal and rela-
tions, including those made by gender theo- tional feminist accounts of sex differences
rists themselves, about any potential for the that are based on biological categories. It also
eradication of social inequality through liber- asserted that gender differences could not be
al approaches stressing educational access seen simply as expressions of the exercise of
and opportunity. This combination of con- individual ability under essentially liberal
cerns has established reproduction theorists, equality practices (Arnot and Dillabough
arguably, as the critical consciousness of the 1999; Dillabough 2002).
field, as the source of a "critical political Contrary, then, to the more optimistic lib-
semantics" (Fraser and Gordon 1995) for eral perspectives, feminist reproduction think-
understanding a system that still largely privi- ing provided the field with the essential theo-
leges men over women, white students over retical tools for viewing education as a form
minority ethnic students, and elite classes of power and social constraint that is central
over economically disadvantaged youths. to the maintenance of an unequal gender

Sociology of Education 2003, Vol. 76 (October): 376-379 376

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Gender, Education, and Society G e d i a o y 377

order. entiation, not the democratization of social F

research relations, still lies at the heart of the liberal
the assertion of liberal claims of access and democratic project.
equal opportunity, white middle-class girlsLet us now turn to objections to feminist
and boys continue to dominate higher eche- reproduction theories of education. The first,
lons of academic achievement and the labor originating in approaches informed by post-
market (see, e.g., Arnot, David, and Weiner modernism, cultural studies, and relational
1998). It is, therefore, the reassertion of mid-
feminism, is that reproduction theorists tend
dle-class ideals through educational policy, to devalue the direct part played by culture in
rather than individual differences, abilities,the
or recontextualization of social inequality.
equity policies per se, that largely account The
for primary explanation for this shortcoming
social differentiation. In reading against is the
that feminist reproduction theory is overly
constrained by metatheoretical explanations
grain of liberalism, feminist reproduction the-
orists have argued, for example, that gender of social inequality. Diverse feminist theorists
differences in academic performance must have be therefore asserted that such metatheo-
understood within the context of social and retical accounts, although important, cannot
cultural power formations and therefore pri-address issues of difference, identity, and cul-
ture in ways that enable us to look beyond
marily as representations of structured social
relations (e.g., class, race, and geography).
class toward more complex explanations of
The problem with the singular emphasis that gender inequality (e.g., compulsory hetero-
marks the liberal position in much of the liter-
sexuality, popular culture).
ature on equality is that it ultimately estab-While the pressure to conceptualize "gen-
lishes gender as the priority above all other der" more broadly was crucial to more ethi-
categories. Its emphasis on the centrality cally
of conceived gender theories, these con-
performance also comes at the cost of over- cerns also discouraged feminist reproduction
looking other social and cultural factors, such
theorists from maintaining their concentra-
as global neoliberal economic changes, rising tion on macrolevel concepts of education and
levels of unemployment among marginalized political economy as these concepts affected
social groups, increased standardized testing,differently positioned girls' and boys' educa-
and changing patterns of employment. tional experiences. Key elements of this
In short, while many liberal feminists have
macroproject have thus dissipated, particular-
continued to point to equity policies to ly following the Foucualdian-cultural turn and
as globalization assumed an even greater
explain girls' most recent gains in achieve-
ment in the developed world, feminist repro-hold over the ethical consciousness of state
duction theorists have concentrated instead educational practices. As a result, some repro-
on the changing nature of economic capital duction theorists, while retaining their con-
and its broad, mostly negative, impact on cern with the state, nevertheless seemed
male and female youths in schools, cross- trapped, as liberals had been all along, in sup-
nationally and in the developing world. They porting a liberal rhetoric (e.g., the rise in
have also explored how these forces affect studies of academic performance) that
teachers' work and educational policy. Such stranded them from many of the macroissues
an emphasis draws fundamentally on a char- that had once so concerned them and that
had constituted the very ground on which
acteristic critical consciousness or critical politi-
cal semantic, which, above all else, forcefully they had appeared so strong.
questions the success stories that are widelyA related and more powerful objection
purveyed by liberal feminists and the media rests on the impact of neoliberal policies
about girls' and boys' achievement in schools themselves. For example, the ongoing pres-
and higher education. The great strengths, sure for researchers, extending from the large
then, of feminist reproduction theory have neoliberal research agendas of the 1990s, has
been to show how class mechanisms repro- meant that the work of gender researchers
duce gendered and racialized educational
has sometimes been aligned rather oddly
divisions and to illuminate that social differ- with the rhetoric of governmental policy by

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378 Dillabough
38iau

endor
positions on which feminist reproduction the-
of its alarmist and essentialist claims about
ory rests in seeking to explain how social
gender inequality (e.g., boys' underachieve-
change influences men's and women's expe-
riences of, and successes in, education. This
ment or disruptive masculinities). Precisely
because class stratification has not remained objection asks whether reproduction theory,
dominant in social theory, many gender in its efforts to develop a theory of social
reproduction, may inadvertently have
researchers, including reproduction theorists,
ultimately came to conflate their concerns obscured analyses of gender equality and
about equity with the school effectiveness- social change. In earlier moments, feminist
performance agenda. Yet, as Marshall reproduction accounts attempted to explain
remarked in the Independent, a British daily how education, as a contradictory and com-
broadsheet: plex social structure, subordinated girls and
women. Yet we may want to ask if we suc-
There's a problem but it's not a problem of
ceeded sufficiently to acknowledge the extent
masculinity.... The bulk of struggling pupils
of the modernizing influences and cultural
are to be found in underachieving schools in
working class areas. If the national results were
and geographic changes that have trans-
published by class as well as gender we'd allformed young people's educational experi-
have a real shock. ence at the micro- and macrolevels. Such a
failure still leaves largely unanswered impor-
What is signaled here is the diminished sta- tant questions about young people's differen-
tus of feminist sociological theories of thetial relationship to novel social and structural
state that marks the prevailing intellectual cli-arrangements, as well as those about youth
mate in which studies of gender inequalityagency and identity.
are now formulated. On the one hand, a We have arrived at this state of affairs
postmodernist feminist critique of metatheo-largely because we have returned to a con-
ry was influential in highlighting the deter- cern with the gendered outcomes of a sys-
ministic propensities of some feminist repro-tem, rather than holding on to a project that
ductive accounts. On the other hand, theo-sought to determine how diverse educational
retical work on the state came under attack as
systems function in a changing global, mar-
a consequence of a growing preoccupation ket-oriented, and unequal social order. To
with universal gender differences in achieve- remain committed to an understanding of
ment. It was driven, in turn, by larger con-how education produces gender differentia-
cerns about students' success in a globaltion (as an expression of other social rela-
economy, rather than by rising levels of tions), we would need, as Bernstein (see
poverty among youths cross-nationally, Arnot 2002) argued, a "generative theory" to
transnational migration, and dislocation, for account for the shape of contemporary rela-
example. Moreover, such pressures weretionships between gender, social formations,
compounded by the more general effects of education, and the economy. Such a theory
competitive research agendas in higher edu- would certainly need to address microlevel
cation, restricted and state-directed funding, concerns that have been raised about gen-
and a climate of anti-intellectualism in some dered discourse (e.g., racialized constructions
faculties of education. The paradoxical out- of masculinity and femininity, discursive iden-
come has been the tendency by some repro- tities, risk, and culture), but it would also
duction theorists, especially in the United need to retain a commitment to a critical
States, to turn to neoliberal research practiceassessment of the role of education as an
in response to changing political economies apparatus of the state. If we were to focus our
and global demands, rather than to ethical sights on the development of such a genera-
questions about girls' and boys' engagement tive framework, gender differences in educa-
with education as class expressions of their tion would be constructed not as essential, as
diverse social locations in the state. purely successful, or as the only equity issue
A final objection, this time of an epistemo-on the agenda, but as markers of economic,
logical kind, pertains directly to the presup- cultural, and social privilege that are far more

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 Gender,
Gender, Education,
Education, and Society and Society 379
379

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lo-Anne Dillabough is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She was previously affiliated with the University
of Toronto and the Ontario Institute for Studies of Education. She has published widely on gender
theory and teacher education and in the sociology of education. Her recent coedited book (with
Madeleine Arnot), entitled Challenging Democracy: International Perspectives on Gender,
Education and Citizenship was published by RoutledgeFalmer. Address correspondence to Jo-Anne
Dillabough, Department of Educatonal Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T
1Z4, Canada; e-mail: [email protected].

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