Review of Strategies to Address Gender Inequalities in Scottish ...

• Most policies relate to equal opportunities, including gender, race, religion,disability etc.• Policies on gender will also be part of policies on all equality issues.Twenty authorities expected that, where schools had policies, they would refer to theNational Priorities 2 , and 6 expected them to acknowledge the General Teaching Council(Scotland) Guidelines (GTC, 1991). Sixteen authorities expected to see gender issues onschool development plans, where this was relevant to the context of the school. Othersindicated that this would be the case only if an issue had been identified within the schoolitself.• Gender issues would only appear as a stand-alone priority if through selfevaluation a particular issue was identified.• Some schools will have specific strategies to tackle boys’ underachievement, butthis would be part of a whole school policy on raising attainment.• Schools would be expected to include aspects of inclusion and equality in [their]development plans and gender equality would be monitored in all aspects ofschool life.A total of 18 authorities responded to a request for documentation on equal opportunitypolicies in relation to the topics addressed in the questionnaire. The responses wereanalysed to provide further contextual information.3.2 Policy documentationOf the 18 who responded to the request for policy documents, 1 stated that there was nospecific equal opportunities policy in relation to children, while a further 11 providedcopies of equal opportunities policies that were concerned with employment. Most ofthese were general local authority or ‘corporate’ policies where a range of factors leadingto possible inequality were identified. They ranged significantly in scope and detail.Six authorities provided documentation that referred specifically to schools. (Two weresupplied in addition to conditions of service.) One provided a generic policy statementthat schools were required to adopt and customise with their own name, etc. It focusedon access to the curriculum and encouraged positive attitudes and the countering ofstereotypes and prejudice. Gender equality was explicitly mentioned. Two otherauthorities provided policy statements that set expectations for staff in schools, both ofwhich specifically referred to gender as a factor in discrimination and inequality.The final 3 focused on gender as an issue in achievement in particular and, in one case,provided further detail on one of the strategies investigated as a case study in thefieldwork phase of the project. One authority had published a support pack for schools.The pack provided a review of the literature and offered practical guidance on cateringfor the needs of boys and girls in order to raise achievement. It also stated that while theissue of boys’ underachievement was important, the issue of equal opportunity for girlsremained very relevant. Another provided no overall policy statement but sentdocumentation relating to the implementation of single gender classes, including a briefreview of the strategy by external consultants and achievement data from one secondaryschool that had implemented it. (This contributed to the case study report in Section 4.)Three pieces of documentation were received from the final authority – a general equalopportunities policy, a learning and teaching policy and a learning and teaching toolkitdesigned to provide practical advice to teachers. The learning and teaching policy talkedabout inclusion, meeting the needs of the whole learner, multiple intelligences, flexible2 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/education/nationalpriorities/default.asp______________________________________________________________________________________Review of Strategies to 18 University of StrathclydeAddress Gender Inequalitiesand University of Glasgow