The main aim of the paper is to analyse methodological considerations relating to processes of production and exchange of gender knowledge. It draws on a research study into Scottish independent schooling (Forbes et al, 2008; Forbes and Weiner, 2008; Horne et al forthcoming; Lingard et al forthcoming).  The question that frames this paper is: what are the effects for empirical research of the power/knowledge configurations in specific school gender discourse/practice regimes?

Our purpose is twofold: to explore the ways in which research and schooling may be gendered in/through their discourses and practices, and to inform the development and use of inclusive methodological approaches in future empirical research into in/exclusion in schools.

The paper opens by introducing the trajectory of gender policy in Scotland as a context for the analysis of the gendering of schooling that follows.  It will be argued that gender issues are hidden in Scotland in the sense that the country’s policy and governance take little account of the equality issues, in particular their intersectional nature, thus producing an un-gendered, individualised child at the heart of schooling (Forbes, Öhrn & Weiner, 2011). The key theoretical concepts which frame the paper - gender, elites (Savage and Williams, 2008), and discourse/practices - are discussed together with the paper’s analytical framework of knowledge/power. Three school regimes are investigated and data gathered as well as researcher reflexive data, to investigate the effects of school gender regimes for research, in particular, in relation to access, power/knowledge, research relationships, and researcher identification and positioning (Gordon, 1980; Howard, 2008; Humes, 1986; Walford, 1994). 

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