At least since the early 1970s, education in relation to all curricular subjects and at all levels has been subject to widespread feminist critique along with (though less prevalently) suggested strategies for transformation (see, for example, Acker, 1994; Arnot & Weiner, 1987; Burchell & Millman, 1989; Deem, 1978; Frith & Mahony, 1994; Gaskell, 1992; Measor & Sikes, 1992; Spender, 1980, 1982;Walkerdine, 1989;Weiner, 1994;Wolpe, 1988). Monographs and edited collections in the area have tended not to be curricular-subject specific (though for exceptions, see Walkerdine [1989], Whyld [1983]; for work specifically on foreign language classrooms, see Clark [1998], Powell [1986], Sunderland [1994]). In language education, however, gender has been the topic of numerous articles. Much of this work has tended to focus on gender difference rather than gender disadvantage and thus has not engaged as thoroughly with justice, equality, and opportunity as it might. In this chapter, I survey gender research in education and in language education in particular, describe a recent study of gender and interaction in the language classroom (Sunderland, 1996), and consider how some concepts of critical discourse analysis might point us in productive directions for future research.
Alastair Pennycook inscribes gender into his work on critical pedagogy and language education (1989, 1990, 1999), and the TESOL Quarterly 1999 special issue devoted to critical pedagogy (and edited by Pennycook) contains a range of work that refers directly or indirectly to gender (Frye, 1999; Ibrahim, 1999; Mackie, 1999; Nelson, 1999).