For decades now, there have been sustained calls within the academic field to engage in research that challenges dominant knowledge production processes (Abu-Lughud 1991; Narayan 1993; Smith 2012; Takayama 2011). Given that critical feminist research has had a long-standing goal of challenging the essentialism, power hierarchies, and concepts of difference embedded in the research process, the editors (Manion & Shah) of a special issue of Gender and Education—Decolonizing Gender and Education Research: Exploring the Relationship Between Feminist Research on Education and Decolonizing, Indigenous Knowledges and Cosmologies—aim to catalyze and illuminate research that challenges the knowledge production process from a range of feminist epistemological perspectives.

Several key debates in gender and education and feminist studies will be highlighted, including but not limited to how knowledge is produced, by who, on what topics, and for what purposes; the role and significance of intersectionality in feminist research and action in education; the politics of sameness and difference in education research and practice; and the opportunities and challenges associated with supporting and  engaging with boys and men in feminist efforts to promote and achieve social justice in and through education (e.g. men as producers of feminist knowledge; men as allies in feminist movements; and the significance of masculinities and femininities in terms of education policy and practice).

For more information on this special issue, including when and how to submit a proposal, please see here.