Gender equity in education promotes equitable learning experiences and future opportunities for all students. For such equity to be realized, students need inclusive and meaningful learning environments. However, in many educational contexts, gendered norms and practices continue to shape students’ learning experiences. As part of hidden curriculum, these influences can affect female students’ subject choices and career aspirations (Wang et al., 2013; OECD, 2022). 

One effective avenue to address this challenge is Freire’s (1970) critical pedagogy, which emphasizes that education should focus on developing critical consciousness through dialogue and problem-posing, enabling learners to connect their lived experiences to structural conditions and supporting autonomy and collaborative inquiry. Current educational challenge concerns whether students are supported to critically reflect on the assumptions that shape their learning.

In response to this challenge, this ongoing study assumes that double-loop learning holds the key. This study examines how double-loop learning can be elicited focusing on how female students examine underlying assumptions about their future aspirations. Argyris and Schön (1974) distinguish between single-loop learning, where individuals adjust actions to improve outcomes without questioning underlying assumptions, and double-loop learning, where individuals revise the assumptions, values, and beliefs that shape how situations are understood and how problems are framed (Argyris & Schön, 1974; Argyris, 1982, 1990). 

To scaffold students’ autonomous construction of understanding and metacognitive sense-making (Green & Gredler, 2002), the study draws on the Japanese concept of kizuki, which refers to an ‘ah-ha moment’ that occurs when one begins to see a situation from a new perspective. Through such moments, individuals reinterpret their experiences and gradually develop their own practical theories of action (Inoue, 2012). For students in rapidly changing contexts, structured opportunities to encounter dissonance, uncertainty, or stuckness may function as pathways to kizuki, where reflection supports more informed and meaningful choices.

The ultimate goal of this ongoing study is to contribute to understanding how educational practices can support female students’ critical sense-making in contexts where learning and future choices are shaped by implicit assumptions and changing social conditions. By examining how structured reflection and dialogue can identify double-loop learning in relation to gender equity and other contextual influences, the study aims to point toward pedagogical approaches that help students engage meaningfully with their experiences and aspirations. The research questions for this study are:
1) How do secondary female students link their everyday experiences to gender equity issues and other social, institutional, and contextual factors during structured reflection and dialogue?
2) When does students reflections remain at the level of interpersonal attitudes and when does it involve assumption-level questioning or reframing?

This on-going study employs action research design to examine how structured reflection and dialogue within global learning lesson support female students in linking everyday school experiences to gender equity issues. The designed lessons are iteratively refined across cycles based on analysis of the prior cycle’s reflections and discussion patterns. Currently, it involves around 10-20 female secondary school students ( age around 16-18) from a single-sex secondary school in Kazakhstan. The site was selected because it provides a context in which students’ participation, dialogue, and reflective engagement can be closely examined. These participants were selected based on the following recruitment criteria: (1) they are female students in the 11th or 12th grade in secondary school; (2) they are likely have considered academic interests and made preliminary decisions regarding their future career pathways. In this study data are collected through multiple sources (MacDonald, 2012): (a) students’ written reflections, (b) audio-recorded group and class discussions, and (c) researcher field notes documenting lessons. Preliminary data analysis proceeds in two layers. First, reflections, discussion transcripts, and field notes are analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic analysis to identify patterned meanings relevant to the research questions. Second, themes and fragments are examined through Argyris and Schön’s (1974) single-loop and double-loop learning lens to distinguish reflections focused on improving actions within existing assumptions from reflections that question or revise underlying assumptions guiding interpretation and choice.

Through the data analysis is not complete at this point, the study found that students were inspired in reflective responses about stereotypes, everyday experience, and equity. Through the analyses, we tentatively extracted the following themes regarding how students linked everyday school experiences to gender equity issues. Theme #1. Recognizing bias through everyday episodes. Many students used concrete episodes from daily life (school routines, club activities, gendered role division) as evidence that stereotypes and bias exist. Students described sterotypes as something they can experience and also hold themselves. However, the reflections concluded with takeaways such as ‘avoid judging.’ This suggests that lesson could elicit self-implications, but the reasoning frequently remained at the level of individual attitudes and behavior. Theme #2. Naming institutional patterns that shape opportunities. Some students described how small practices can shape people’s opportunities. Students referred to gendered task assignments and gendered separation of activities in schools. Students emphasized that small differences in treatment and feedback can expand into larger gaps. This indicates that some students were able to connect everyday episodes to broader institutional patterns. Theme #3. Stuggling with how to define fairness when difference exists Some students discuss the difficulty of defining what is equity where physical differences or social expectations are present. This shows that some students try to reason through competing ideas about fairness and the practical consequences of different arrangements. This on-going study findings implies that structured reflection and dialogue can identify (1) self-implicated recognition of stereotypes, (2) some shift toward institutional explanations, and (3) struggle with defining fairness when difference exists.

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