Description: The paper addresses the conceptual question as to whether a transformation has been taking place in eliminating gender inequalities in teachers' employment within educational structures as a result of wider equal opportunities policies in contemporary Britain.In order to debate this question, the first part of the paper will centre on the historical formation of state educational policies in the ideological construction of gender inequalities and occupational hierarchies during the process of industrial capitalism.It aims to show how a highly patriarchal structure of education became culturally and physically embedded within economic and occupational structures as a social norm for most of the 20th century.However, as a result of a momentous climate of social change and the resurgence of the feminist movement in Europe and North America in the late 1960s, successive pieces of equal opportunities legislation was passed during the 1970s. Yet, thirty years later, this paper depicts a mixed picture. It provides stark quantitative evidence on the salience of gender inequalities both in terms of pay differentials and vertical segregation in educational hierarchies in teachers employment in Britain to-day.However, in terms of comparative research, in Scotland, a devolved parliament has been established in 1999, from that of England, and it has brought with it a favourable setting for influencing a more gender aware and sensitive approach to the public processes in the 'new' Scotland.Thus, the paper will also consider whether various policy initiatives have made a positive impact in transforming patriarchal structures in Scootish education and will be placed in a comparative context with European Commission equal opportunities agenda for social change.- Methodology: The paper draws on official parliament sources; historical archive sources; Reports of the Association of University Teachers in the U.K (AUT). Reports of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) in the UK and European Commission Equal Opportunities Policies. Conclusions: Whilst there have been many policy initiatives and European legislation on gender discrimination, there has not been a transformation in terms of overturning cultural ideologies and patriarchies structures in education and economic and social divisions of labour within families.