Special Issue Guest Editors: Alexandra Allan and Penny Tinkle

This special issue will initiate a process of taking stock of gender and education; our hope is that subsequent issues of the Gender and Education journal will take this further forward.

‘Taking stock is to think carefully about a situation or event and form an opinion about it, so that you can decide what to do’ (Cambridge Definition Online). The phrase is an English idiom, but its meaning has international resonance. ‘Taking stock’ is an everyday activity, but this special edition focuses on ‘taking stock’ as an important and timely aspect of our practice as scholars of gender and education.

It is our view that taking stock involves thinking about the relationship between the present and the past. We do not, however, expect papers to be historical in the traditional sense of the word, but contributors may find it useful to mobilise what Tinkler and Jackson call ‘historical sensibility’ (See Gender and Education 26(1) 2014). If you would like to discuss your ideas for a paper in advance of submitting an abstract, please email Alexandra Allan.

There are various ways of ‘taking stock’. In this special issue we welcome papers that either:

1] Take stock by evaluating contemporary gender and education issues. We particularly welcome papers that address issues pertinent to countries where the field of gender and education is fairly young or newly emerging.

2] Take stock by appraising developments in the field of gender and education studies. We welcome papers on all aspects of theoretical and methodological developments in gender and education, especially those that have broadened the field beyond its initial preoccupation with white and western education contexts, for example developments relating to conceptualisations of race or methodologies for incorporating global perspectives.

This special issue of Gender and Education is edited by Alexandra Allan (Exeter University) and Penny Tinkler (Manchester University). If you would like to contribute, please email a 500 word abstract and a 1-2 page CV to Dr Alexandra Allan (A.j.Allan@exeter.ac.uk) by 2 January 2015.