At a Nordic conference on gender in schooling in Reykjavik in 2009 teacher training in Iceland was criticized for not focusing on gender issues. Following the conference, the author was asked for a report by the dean of the School of Education, how gender issues are covered in teacher education and how it should be improved.  

Needless to say, little research on gender issues in teacher training in Iceland is available,  hence the first recommendation was to research this properly. Available sources suggest similar findings as elsewhere (Finland, Sweden, England) that education on gender and equality issues in teacher training has been poor, met with resistance. This lack of focus on gender in teacher education is both against the law and probably supports existing gender stereotypes. A recent study shows that the attitudes of 10^th graders in Iceland to equality issues was much more conservative in 2006 than in 1992.

There seem to be many reasons for this: Curriculum overload; gender issues are sensitive and politizised, it is not acknowledged that this is about scientific knowledge on gender issues. Theories on masculinity and femininity are considered too complicated to be practical and contradict traditional essentialist views on gender.

It is considered important that the proposed changes will not emerge only from specialists (top-down) and to discuss the conceptual approach used in view of the educational policy  so that policies on inclusive schooling, citizenship, multiculturalism and gender equality can all be implemented without one issue dominating another.   

It was very motivating to hear about the Finnish project TASUKO at the ECER in Vienna 2009 and hear about their work and research in teacher education in Finland. I will participate in a conference in Jyveskyla in March 2011 and I am very interested in comparing the main emphasis, hurdles, resistances and successes of the Finnish project to this one.

The research questions as stated now are as follows:

1.     How is the new legal requirement of focusing on equity issues in the curriculum of schools, interpreted in the National curriculum, and in the school curriculum and practice of selected schools?

2.     To what extent do teacher educators in different school subjects focus on gender, the gender system, sexualities and equality?  Why do they consider that important? Are they motivated to participate in research on gender and their teaching?

3.     To what extent does the focus on equity issues include gender and sexuality or other important difference or inclusion dimensions like multiculturalism, citizenship, class and (dis)/ability?

4.     What theoretical approaches to gender conceptualizations are preferred by school teachers, teacher educators and experts on gender and equity issues and why? To what extent is there a gap between the ideas of experts on gender and practicing teachers in school and teacher education?

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