NW 33: Knowing and acting: the changing conditions and potentials of education research

Network
NW 33 Gender and Education

Title
Knowing and acting: the changing conditions and potentials of education research

Abstract
We seek papers exploring the question of how 21st century education researchers are adapting to the changing conditions and potentials of education research in the field of gender. In our disruptive societies, complexity concerning gender is increasing because of threats to the status of women and girls and their roles. Retrospective perspectives concerning the importance of education for women are emerging. Feminist and gender researchers are engaging with the conceptual, political and social issues which arise from populist and counter-populist trends. Exploration of the relationship between knowing and acting is vital because of the destruction of linear connections between them.  

The Call
This special call seeks papers that engage with personal, intellectual, theoretical, practical, and political challenges (and resolutions) relating to increasingly complex gendered environments in society. 

We invite submissions which explore the evolving relationship between knowledge production and action in education research. In a time of shifting social, political, and institutional landscapes, this call seeks reflections that critically engage with how education research responds to and shapes the lived realities of individuals across intersections of gender, race, class, disability, and other social categories.

This is not a call for formal guidance documents, but for thoughtful, provocative contributions that challenge, inspire, and reimagine the role of education research on gender in today’s world.

Contributors are encouraged to consider how gender research can move beyond observation to become a tool for justice, transformation, and accountability. We welcome abstracts that interrogate the gendered politics of knowledge, the role of the researcher, and the possibilities for education research to act as a catalyst for inclusive and equitable change.

If the gender binary can be challenged it is also possible that it offers new opportunities to rethink gender as a concept more widely. There are problematic omissions within feminist and gender research.  Black, Asian, Hispanic, Roma, Disabled, LGBTQI+, Working Class, communities from the Global South, and many other social groups of all genders have often viewed mainstream feminism and its binary gender categorisations as unrepresentative of their embodied experiences. These frameworks are frequently seen as reflecting the interests of a small, globally dominant group — typically white, middle-class women — rather than addressing the diverse realities of marginalised communities.

Although intersectionality is widely used in an attempt to address overlapping forms of oppression at individual, organisational, and societal levels, its impact on policy and practice remains limited. In public policy nationally and internationally intersectional gender statistics rarely go beyond binary categories. Groups such as disabled people, Black communities, LGBTQI+ individuals, and those from lower social classes are often marginalised, even when data reveals the challenges faced by these groups. 

We seek papers exploring these challenges. Example questions and themes:

  1. Can the concept of gender(s) be transformed to incorporate a wide range of gendered embodiments and experiences?
  2. Can we foreground the importance of characteristics beyond gender, such as age, disability, LGBTQ+, class and race?
  3. Is it possible to generate a conception of genders that works for internationally comparative education research?
  4. The role of education research on gender in responding to and shaping social justice movements, policy shifts, and institutional change.
  5. Methodological reflections on how researchers navigate the tension between knowing and acting, especially in relation to gender within marginalised communities.
  6. Critical perspectives on gender and the politics of knowledge production in education, including whose voices are heard, valued, or silenced.
  7. The potential of education research to serve as a transformative tool — not only for understanding but for reimagining educational futures for women and girls
  8. Reflect on the lived experiences of diverse ECRs navigating academic spaces that may be exclusionary or hierarchical.

Contact Person(s)
Andrea Abbas  aa2452(at)bath.ac.uk 
Victoria Showumni v.showunmi(at)ucl.ac.uk