With the Treaty of Amsterdam (ratified by the EU 1999) Gender Mainstreaming began to be introduced as a general principle throughout the European Union. This equal opportunity policy requires all political decision-making processes, regardless of the level or the field of activity, to include the impact of gender on policy decisions. This is a strategy which obliges everybody involved to apply gender-related and gender-differentiated perspectives to all decisions, at all levels, as a matter of course (Council of Europe, 1998, p.15). It contains a potential for political change. A gender perspective must be adopted by regular staff. Gender Mainstreaming does not focus on women, but on the relationship between women and men. It is not the objective, nor the content. The objective is the equal status of women and men and Gender Mainstreaming is a process, a method, for getting there. With its implementation in all areas of policy, the chances are better that the objective of a gender-equal society will be achieved. The focus of Gender Mainstreaming is to transform the political process itself. The research behind this paper has been made in Sweden because this country has had more practical experience than many others of implementing Gender Mainstreaming in different areas, including that of education. Sweden has been committed to the Gender Mainstreaming approach since 1994 (Shared power – shared responsibility, Regeringens proposition, 1993/94:147). It is crucial that the government be involved in implementing Gender Mainstreaming. As early as in 1990 in a government report on power-relations in society Yvonne Hirdman described the dominant gender-system based on the separation of the sexes and the construction of a hierarchy between the sexes with the male as the norm (Maktutredningens huvudrapport, SOU 1990:44, Stockholm). Since 1994 Gender Mainstreaming (jämställdhetsintegrering) is a public objective to achieve gender equality in Sweden. One of the tools, the 3R-Method, has been developed by Gertrud Åström (Swedish Association of Local Councils, 1999), the three Rs being the representation of women and men, ressources and realities or background. Schools offer a considerable potential for change where established gender patterns are concerned. However, there has been relatively little analysis of the process in schools. As part of a doctoral thesis this paper tries to remedy this deficiency. An assessment will be made as to what extent the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming is used as a tool to achieve permanent results in terms of greater gender equality.

This study also focuses on methods of Gender Mainstreaming uesed in Swedish schools. It concentrates on two areas, the analysis of the available material and on interviews with experts within the framework of Gender Mainstreaming school projects. I have analized qualitative guideline-based interviews carried out between 2003-2006 with experts from different levels of gender equality institutions, from different levels in schools, from the school administration as well as from universities. The interview technique of expert-interviews is frequently used in the field of education and implementation research (Meuser/ Nagel 2003; Bohnsack/ Marotzki/ Meuser, 2004).The exploratory questions are concerned with different phases of implementation, such as introduction and sensitisation, method and planning, including the process of introducing change. The focus is on what facilitated and what hindered implementation, where difficulties were encountered and where positive changes could be observed.

The main objective of my research was to identify these factors. I was able to define six, three of which are facilitative, while three emerge as significant counter-forces. The first of the success factors to be identified, gender awareness as “eye-opener”, is essential in that only with the “aha!”-experience, gained through taking on a gender perspective can the insight be won that existing that if if greater gender equality is to be achieved existing gender relations need to be changed. Gender awareness seems to give rise to a similar aha-effect in schools as did Carol Gilligans’s study In a different voice in the German Universities in the 1980s, which questioned the claim of dominance and prerogative of definition of men. In Germany then as in Sweden now, the eye-opener, an initial understanding of the importance of the gender issue, is essential if work with Gender Mainstreaming is to be successful.