Gender and Education Vol. 21, No.

4, July 2009, 423430

VIEWPOINT The sound of silence! Reflections on inclusion and exclusion in the field of gender and education
Elisabet hrna and Gaby Weinerb*
a

Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; bCES, Edinburgh University, UK

(Received 14 November 2007; final version received 28 October 2008)

CGEE_A_368331.sgm Taylor and Francis gaby.weiner@education.ed.ac.uk GabyWeiner 0000002009 00 Taylor 2009 and Viewpoint Education 0954-0253 (print)/1360-0516 Gender& Francis 10.1080/09540250802681618(online)

The aim of this article is to start a debate about the inclusiveness/exclusiveness of the field of gender and education, and what change might be possible. While we focus on the field of gender and education as a whole (including its journals and academic practices), our main sources of evidence are our own experiences as gender researchers on different sides of the Anglophone divide, and a small survey of articles in this journal, Gender and Education, chosen because it is the main journal of choice for those hoping to make a contribution to the field. We examined articles published in three years, 1990, 1998 and 2007, in order to identify if and how the journal (and hence the field) has changed in orientation over time. Following a discussion of the survey outcomes, we draw attention in particular to the journals Anglophone orientation and the implications this has for the field as a whole. We further argue for greater reflexivity about our and others practices as feminist academics, and propose some strategies for action with the aim of making the field more inclusive. Keywords: gender; Anglophone; inclusion; exclusion; Britain; Sweden; education

Introduction To what extent is the relatively new field of gender and education dominated by English-speaking and Anglo-cultural issues? What status has research originating from outside the Anglophone domain of interest? Why are we raising these issues anyway? In this short viewpoint article, we want to argue that these questions are worth raising and discussing because they affect not only individual researchers and how their work is received and evaluated, but also the field of gender and education as a whole. We draw on our personal experiences, and more crucially, on those of less experienced colleagues who have found it enormously difficult to get their research published in English-language journals. We have become increasingly aware of the lack of visibility (or absence) of non-Anglophone issues and voices in the general literature on gender and education, for example, when recently updating own literature bases1 at the beginning of a prestigious gender project funded by the Swedish Research Council.2 The project involved both senior and beginning researchers (doctoral students),3 so it was important that the literature base was international, comprehensive and thematically lucid. However, though we were able to draw on an impressive range of theoretical and empirical literature (as in the reference list at the
*Corresponding author. Email: gaby.weiner@education.ed.ac.uk
ISSN 0954-0253 print/ISSN 1360-0516 online 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09540250802681618 http://www.informaworld.com

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end of this article), we also found evidence of bias and omission which, we want to argue, demands wider discussion. In this article, therefore, we explore the extent to which the field of gender and education has become dominated by Anglophone voices and the implications arising. As evidence, we draw in particular on the findings of a small survey of articles in Gender and Education, the main journal of choice for those hoping to make a contribution to the field, at three specific points in the journals history: 1990, 1998 and 2007. Following a discussion of the survey outcomes, we propose some strategies for action with the aim of making the field more inclusive. Our use of silence in the title is meant to suggest a sense of something missing which nonetheless has strong reverberations. Ironically, in considering concepts such as silence, absence, disappearance, we are forced to focus on the opposite the noise, voice and appearance of the visibly present (Hill 2006). Impact of the Anglophone To what extent is the Anglophone/non-Anglophone dualism played out in (feminist) academic life? What advantage does having English as a first language confer on researchers in our field of gender and education? This has had a special meaning for us since we are on opposite sides of the Anglophone/non-Anglophone divide, yet at the same time have a history of collaboration. This collaboration explains why the article focuses on Scandinavian research and practices as an instance of the nonAnglophone; and why thus, it cannot claim to represent other Western or (especially) third-world settings. Anglophone is here used to denote a person whose first language is English though the term is primarily associated with Englishness and English culture and is largely the legacy of the British colonial empire (Center for Reproductive Law and Policy 1997). Thus, included in the Anglophone category are researchers from the UK, and English-speaking post-Colonial countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, who tend to share common histories and understandings of schooling and education more widely, and who likewise have a common referential basis for their work on gender. We have noted the increasingly hegemonic influence of the Anglophone at the level of Scandinavian academic practice in, for example, the growing emphasis on performativity and productivity over traditional scholarship. Thus only relatively recently in Scandinavia has it become expected of beginning researchers to present their work in reputed English-language journals in addition, of course, to making sure that their research reaches the required level of excellence. In so doing, they face the twin obstacles of writing in a second language and drawing on a cultural context that is seen as outside the Anglophone gender and education norm. This means that they experience difficulties in making their voices heard at conferences (a Nordic symposium at a recent Gender and Education conference attracted only Scandinavian participants) and in getting their articles into print. Reasons given for failure in the latter instance that we have first-hand knowledge of, include: over- or under-emphasis on the Scandinavian policy context or Scandinavian research, lack of relevance to current debates and/or inadequate quality of written English. Responsibility for these inadequacies is firmly placed with the unsuccessful author rather than the overall system of reviewing or the form of support offered by the field. The consequence at the individual level is an othering of the non-Anglophone, since such criticisms are less evident in the case of Anglophone research. As a consequence, many reseachers for whom

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English is a second (or third) language are discouraged from presenting and/or publishing in English, and thus are restricted to the few available journals in their respective countries taking gender topics. A further consequence at the level of the field is that non-Anglophone concerns and discourses remain invisible. A recent example concerns the re-publication of a selection of classic articles from the Gender and Education journal. The editors note the relative over-representation of contributions from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the reason given being that researchers from developing countries tend to provide case studies exploring specific issues in particular countries (Skelton and Frances 2005, 2). Perspectives from such non-Anglophone sources (and other countries that are neither developing nor Anglophone, we suggest) are thus judged as illuminating the specificity of the region while Anglophone perspectives are seen as more generalisable to other countries and contexts. A similar point is made by Larsson who argues, for the field of ethnography and education, that the relation between the Swedish/Scandinavian network and the Anglo-American is on the whole unilateral (2006, 191). Swedish researchers invite UK and US colleagues to Sweden, and refer to and use their research whereas the opposite seldom happens. Larsson discusses the difficulty for non-Anglophone writers of attaining international visibility largely because their journals are not included in citation indexes. The example he gives relates to the US-based Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) which includes nearly 100 education journals. According to a particular journal publisher, Larsson reports, of the 92 journals ranked by ISI in the Education and Educational Research category: 63 are published from the US, 24 from the UK and 5 from Europe and the Rest of the World None of these are Scandinavian (2006, 192). The above instance suggests that the Anglophone/non-Anglophone divide is not exclusive to gender and education; nevertheless, given the ethics embedded in the field see, for instance, the mission statement of the journal of the field below one might have expected something different. Some consequences of exclusion One consequence of such excluding practices is the one-way flow of travelling discourses from Anglophone to non-Anglophone settings (Mahony and Hextall 2001; Lundahl 2005; Arnesen, Lahelma, and hrn 2007). British research on masculinities and boys, for example, has had considerable impact on policy-makers in Sweden, whereas the importance of Swedish state policy for gender research has attracted little attention in Britain. This inattention is surprising given that gender as a research field has been more important for (and better funded by) Swedish policy-makers than their British counterparts, with no British equivalent to the Swedish National Graduate School in Gender Studies established in the early 2000s.4 As a consequence of such state gender policies, Sweden has witnessed in recent years an upsurge of research (mainly doctoral studies) on gender and schooling ranging from examination of masculinities and femininities in the Swedish classroom to the intersectional influence of gender, ethnicity and social class on students understandings of mathematics and science (e.g. Berggren 2001; Gannerud 1999; Forsberg 2002; Karlsson 2003; Ambjrnsson 2004; Sandell 2007; Nystrm 2007). These state policies have also sought to ensure a critical mass of gender researchers working on educational issues in Sweden for the foreseeable future.

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Greater mutuality also might be an aid in offering an alternative to Anglophone policy agendas. For instance, the issue of boys underachievement which has so dominated the British gender and education field (and policy-making) since the 1990s might have been better challenged by greater reference to Scandinavian research which has generally taken account of both sexes with less emphasis on boys and masculinity. An outcome of this non-obsession with boys and masculinities is that research on girls and women has retained a stronger position in the overall (Scandinavian) field. Thus, there has been no corresponding silence on girls and femininity in Scandinavia (hrn 2002), say, compared to Britain, where the discourse of male failure is seen as a major obstacle and disincentive to research on girls and conceptions of femininity generally (Archer and Leathwood 2003). Whether similar themes, patterns and characteristics could be found in the Gender and Education journal was the main reason for the survey of journal articles, which forms the basis of the next section.

Survey of Gender and Education journal The survey focused on the content of articles published in the Gender and Education journal in three specific years: 1990, 1998 and 2007. The journal was selected because it is frequently the first journal of choice for gender researchers working in education, as already intimated. The particular years were chosen to provide a sense of if and how the orientation of the content has changed over the years. The journal was established in 1989, so 1990 was the first full year of publication, and 2007 was the most recent full year of publication, with 1998 an approximate midway point. The current thrust of the journal is articulated on its website as to further feminist knowledge, theory, consciousness, action and debate:
Gender and Education is an international forum for discussion of multidisciplinary educational research and ideas that focus on gender as a category of analysis. Contributors should bear in mind that they are addressing an international audience. The journal grew out of a feminist politics and is committed to developing the critical discussion of gender and education in its broadest sense. It is particularly interested in the place of gender in relation to other key social differences and seeks to further feminist knowledge, theory, consciousness, action and debate. We welcome contributions which examine and theorize the interrelated experiences of women and girls and men and boys, and how these shape and are shaped by other social differences. We expect articles to engage in feminist debate and to go beyond the simple description of what boys/men and girls/women do.5

The titles and abstracts of original articles were examined to identify the range of topics, and predominant orientation (theoretical, empirical, archival, practice/policy) and whether originating from Anglophone or non-Anglophone settings.6 The findings are summarised in Table 1. We can see that the number of articles increased over the period as more journal issues were published 24 in 1990 (three issues per year), to 27 (four issues per year) to 35 (six issues per year). This suggests the growing strengthening and maturity of gender and education as a field.7 In terms of orientation, the 1990 volume has more articles on policy/practice and also more viewpoint articles involving expression of perspective or entry into a debate. Such viewpoint articles are missing altogether from the later issues. Thus, articles from 1998 and 2007 tend to be more theoretical and/or

Gender and Education

Table 1. Contents of the Gender and Education journal for 1990, 1998 and 2007. Year of publication 1990 (vol. 2) Theoretical Empirical Archives Practice/policy Viewpoint articles (Essay reviews) (Re-publications) Other Anglophone Non-Anglophone Total articles
a b

427

1998 (vol. 10) 8 17 1 1 (no abstract)b 24 3 27

2007 (vol. 19)a 9 24 1 (3) (3) 1 (editorial)c 31 4 35

3 6 1 8 6 22 2 24

Special issue on teacher education. No indication given of orientation of article. c Lengthy editorial, counted as article.

empirical, or review-based (such as essay reviews). Little change is discernible, however, in the level of dominance of Anglophone writers with few articles appearing from non-Anglophone sources. Overall, the topics of the papers suggest a greater concern with issues of Western Anglo-feminism than with developments in other parts of the world. Concluding points We have attempted in this viewpoint article to explore briefly what we see as a number of presences (and absences) in the field that has come to be known as gender and education. We have noted the hegemony of Anglophone interests and issues in research and publishing. A small study of the main journal of the gender and education field also suggests a preoccupation with Western feminist concerns and a relative lack of interest in other parts of the world. We acknowledge that the creation of any new disciplinary field is complex, and the struggles over status, power and knowledge are not to be underestimated (Erixon-Arreman 2005). In fact, gender researchers in education (particularly in England8) have been largely successful in scaling the walls of Academia. The field now owns a high-ranked (British) journal, runs a well-attended biennial international conference as well as a programme of regional conferences and seminars, and has instituted an academic society of the same name.9 It thus offers a potentially productive career and publications pathway, at least for those whose language and cultural milieu is English-speaking.10 In so doing, however, it seems that the field, originally created to expose and eradicate bias, has been obliged to jettison many of its inclusive aspirations and has missed, it seems, the opportunity to be disciplinarily innovative by, for example, embracing practitioners as well as academics, policy-makers and practitioners as well as theorists, non-Anglophones as well as Anglophones.11 However, we also want to argue that things can be different! What, we ask, would the field of gender and education look like if research ideas were encouraged to flow

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in a variety of directions and non-Anglophone research was thus re-positioned as more central to the field? Perhaps, current concerns in developing countries of getting more girls into basic education might elevate political action higher up the current gender and education agenda. Or, greater attention to Scandinavian gender discourses might provide more focus on the potential of the state in promoting gender change. Or, research and analytic frameworks which focus on both sexes might be more effective in challenging the current obsession with boys achievement. Other practical means for making the field more inclusive include, in the case of journals and the publication business generally:

better language and editorial support for contributors for whom English is not a first language; editorial policies aimed at extending theorising to embrace those offering alternative perspectives on, and experiences of, the field; non-Anglophone scholars invited (e.g. as referees) to comment on work other than from their own country or region; Anglophone researchers required to incorporate non-Anglophone literature where possible, particularly if written in English;12 exploration of the likely impact on the field of the extension of the apparatus of performativity, such as citation indices, metrics, international league tables and the like.

Activating these possibilities, we suggest, would aid the development of new understandings of gender and education as a field in terms of the theories and developments that are deemed significant, and in so doing, might also challenge the automatic assumption that the Anglophone voice counts most, theoretically, empirically and politically. It would also indicate that the field of gender and education is genuinely as well as rhetorically committed to inclusion and social justice. Our attempt to raise these issues has attracted a lot of interest and support from colleagues in Scandinavia (and from other non-Anglophone settings) as perhaps might be expected. It would be interesting to know whether other contributors to the field (and the journal) share the concerns raised in this article, and if so, whether there are enough like-minded people to indeed make a difference!

Acknowledgement
This paper is a revised version of a paper presented at the Gender and Education Association Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 2830 March 2007.

Notes
1. For example, hrn (2000, 2002), Arnot, David, and Weiner (1999), and Weiner and Berge

(2001).
2. The project was entitled Changing Sex/Gender Patterns in Sweden: Policies, Perspectives

and Practices and took place between 2003 and 2007.

3. Research team: senior researchers Eva Gannerud, Inga Tallberg-Broman, Elisabet hrn,

Gaby Weiner and Inga Wernersson, and doctoral students Charlotta Edstrm, Angerd Eilard, Maria Hjalmarsson and Ann-Sofie Holm. 4. Full-time doctoral students were first admitted in January 2002 and by 2005, there were 39 doctoral students representing 21 different disciplines. Established by the Swedish

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

parliament, the aim of the graduate school was determinedly cross-disciplinary and wideranging. The National Graduate School of Gender Studies works through interdisciplinary collaboration with participants from various scientific environments with diverse traditions. This diversity affects the structure of the graduate research training, scientific problem solving procedures, methodology, theory, reflexivity, and ethics (Graduate School website, accessed 28 July 2008). See http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09540253.html (accessed 9 April 2008). Anglophone/non-Anglophone categorisation is made on the basis of author setting, i.e. institutional base. However, we acknowledge that this categorisation has the disadvantage of not distinguishing Anglophone writers in non-Anglophone settings, and vice versa. The journal is now included in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) which gives it added academic status and capital. For example, during the three years under scrutiny in the survey, only one article came from researchers working in Scottish institutions (Ducklin and Ozga 2007). For more details of the Gender and Education Association, see http://www.genderandeducation.com/. A recent example is the proportion of books on gender among the new books announced by the British Educational Research Association (BERA) in its March 2008 newsletter. Eight out of the 33 books mentioned (or just under a quarter) were primarily on gender including one feminist treatment of sex education (Research Intelligence 102: 267). Action researchers, for example, have been much better at allowing a combination of different levels of writing and researching about education. For example, see the Educational Action Research Journal website at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/ 09650792.asp. In terms of Scandinavia, this could be easily done as Scandinavian doctoral theses are usually in paperback form with an English abstract and summary. They are also increasingly publicly accessible via university websites.

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