The theme of this double symposium ‘What is gained by investigating didactical interactions when looking at gender in subject didactics’ falls within the following up of NW 27 “2017 Special Call on Gender and Educational practices” and concerns theme 1 of this following up: “Teaching practices, learning dynamics and the content learnt in classrooms”. Chantal Amade-Escot, Ingrid Verscheure (Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France) and Marie Öhman (Örebro Universitet, Sweeden) coordinate it.
Until the 2000s, European didactics did not pay much attention to gender issues. To a certain extent didactic research can be seen as gender-blind research even though some innovative works on the theme appeared during the last decade through the ongoing-related work in Network 27. Moreover, little research focused on classroom practices in relation to the knowledge taught and scarce attention has been paid to how the contents of lessons impact student gendered learning. Some pioneering works in various countries began to look at the gendered knowledge content enacted in the classroom against the background of didactical lenses. These approaches delve into how the content, which is brought into play through teaching practices, impact students’ specific knowledge construction and learning.

Extending to gender issues the idea of comparative didactics (Ligozat, Amade-Escot & Östmam, 2015) within the Teaching Traditions and Learning (TTL) research project, this symposium focuses on a discussion on how the French and the Swedish didactical research traditions shed new lights on gendered knowledge constructions in different subject didactics (physical education, physics, reading and writing, …) and at different school level (preschool, primary and secondary schools). Considering that boys and girls are physically and discursively produced to be differently literate according to the various school subjects, the French and the Swedish didactical approaches - that are very specific to the knowledge intended to be taught - seek to describe how gender order and the related potential inequalities are enacted in the classroom through: i) gendered differences in interactions between teachers and students; ii) social relations between peers; and, iii) differential academic expectations. The approaches rely on different theoretical and methodological frameworks, but tackle the specific forms of embodiments, discourses, values and cultural experiences at the core of knowledge construction in everyday classroom life as a material force that recreate gender inequalities (Taylor, 2013).

The purpose of the symposium is twofold: 1) to account on how each framework confronts the issue of gender in various settings using didactical microanalyses that may include intersectional aspects; 2) to stimulate critical discussion into theoretical approaches used in investigating gender in subject didactics: particularly the joint action in didactics framework (Amade-Escot, Elandoulsi & Verscheure, 2015; Verscheure & Amade-Escot, 2007); and the Foucaldian framework of governance, knowledge and power in classroom (Danielsson, Berge & Lidar, 2017; Öhman, 2010).

The two discussants: Florence Ligozat (Université de Genève, Switzerland) and Carol Taylor (Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom) provide external comments in addressing the question of ‘investigating gender in Didactics - Learning and Teaching’, respectively from ‘the standpoint of comparative didactics’ and ‘the contribution of material feminist dialogues across international boundaries’.

Amade-Escot, C., Elandoulsi, S. Verscheure, I. (2015). Physical Education in Tunisia: Teachers' Practical Epistemology, Students’ Positioning and Gender Issues. Sport, Education and Society, 20(5), 656-675. Danielsson, A., Berge, M. & Lidar, M. (2017). Knowledge and power in the technology classroom: a framework for studying teachers and students in action. Cultural Studies in Science Education. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9782-0 Gruson, B., Forest, D. & Loquet, M. (2012). Jeux de savoir. Etude de l’action conjointe en didactique. Rennes : Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Ligozat, F., Amade-Escot, C. & Östman, L. (2015). Beyond Subject Specific Approaches of Teaching and Learning: Comparative Didactics. Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education, 46(4), 313-321. Öhman, M. (2010). Analysing the direction of socialisation from a power perspective. Sport, Education and Society, 15, 393-409. Taylor, C. (2013) Objects, bodies and space: gender and embodied practices of mattering in the classroom. Gender and Education. 25(6), 688-703. Verscheure, I. & Amade-Escot, C. (2007) The gendered construction of physical education content as the result of the differentiated didactic contract. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy. 12(3), 245-272.