This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: New initiative in Israel: The Institute for Gender Equality in Education
Yael Boim Fein, Mandel School for Educational Leadership

My name is Yael Boim Fein, and I was born a raised in Israel. I am a feminist activist, a feminist researcher, and an educator.  I am a fellow at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Israel, focused on gender and education, and a member of a feminist theory research group in the van leer institute in Jerusalem. I am the founding director of the new Israeli Center for Gender Equality in education in the Society for the Advancement of Education.

Last year I participated for the first time in the GEA conference, and it was a life changing experience. Four days of constant discussion about the most burning issues in the field of gender and education, amongst an amazing group of researchers and practitioners, all with the desire to share knowledge in order to make the world a better place – so exciting! There was no doubt in my mind that I want to come again, this time to share my own vision, and to think together of the ways we can form a better interplay between research and practice, and share knowledge on an international scale. 

As a fellow at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, my focus was exploring why, despite the extensive research done in the field of gender and education, pointing out the various ways in which the education system preserve gender inequality, and the way gender roles limits girls and boys ability to develop more fully, the education system is not changing. That question might sound naïve, but my intention was to identify the key factors for the lack of systematic change, in order to find the way to promote one, using public policy analytical framework. Meaning that my goal was to identify factors that can be opportunities for change.

In the coming GEA conference session I will describe some of the current Gender Equality issues in Israel, point out the key factors that can be opportunity for change in the education systems, focusing on the interplay between research and practice.

I invite you to a discussion focused at generating new ways to make research a better tool in the service of education, asking what theoretical questions and methodologies would be most fruitful for promoting change on one hand, and on the other hand, seeking for ways to use practical knowledge emerging from existing research.

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019