Gender and learning: equity, equality and pedagogy

In this article on gender and learning Harry Daniels and colleagues suggest that boys experience a contradiction between the cultural messages and practices associated with masculinity (competition and individuality) and the teaching practices typical of successful primary schooling (collaboration and codependency). They consider the impact of this contradiction on the question of boys' underachievement, and their account of the views of children as to whether boys and girls learn the same or differently makes salutary reading. ‘Which pedagogy,’ they ask, ‘suits who best?’