Introduction

In 2004, the Canadian Association for Studies on Women in Education (CASWE) celebrated its 10th anniversary as an official association within the Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE). We used that celebration as an opportunity to reflect on our past successes as well as the challenges that lay ahead for us as scholars interested in bringing to visibility the pedagogy, curriculum, philosophies, policies, and organizational practices that re/inscribe inequity based on gendered norms. It was at that time that the idea to edit a special edition of the Canadian Journal of Education (CJE) on the theme of girls and women in education began to take shape.

En effet, la publication d'un numero thematique de la Revue canadienne d'education (RCE) sur le theme des roles sociaux de sexe est apparue comme une maniere appropriee de celebrer le dixieme anniversaire de l'Association canadienne pour l'etude des femmes et de l'education (ACEFE). Deja en 1992, la RCE avait publie un premier numero sur cette problematique, sous la direction de Linda Briskin et Rebecca Coulter. A ce moment, la recherche et l'action etait orientees principalement vers l'acces aux systemes et aux programmes de formation, la transformation des programmes a la lumiere de l'equite entre les sexes, les defis poses par le climat existant dans les environnements d'apprentissage et les programmes d'etudes eux-memes.

This is not the first such issue on gender and education for CJE; in 1992, Linda Briskin and Rebecca Coulter co-edited a special edition that addressed issues of feminist pedagogy. They noted in their introduction that feminist research and action were focused on four main areas: access to institutions and programs, curriculum transformation, climate issues in educational settings, and pedagogy. CASWE became a reality two years after that edition was published and now, more than 15 years later, a generation of educators has been exposed in one way or another to scholarship, workshops, and articles in scholarly and professional journals that enable them to understand gender issues in education more deeply.

Quinze ans apres la creation de I'ACEFE, on constate a quel point les resultats des recherches feministes ont aide a transformer les contextes de formation, les pratiques d'enseignement et les experiences d'apprentissage des femmes et des filles au Canada et ailleurs dans le monde. Ce nouveau numero de la RCE souligne aussi le fait que certains des defis documentes dans le numero dirige par Coulter et Briskin sont toujours presents. Entre autres, la recherche feministe a permis d'identifier la dynamique des liens qui attachent ensemble les problematiques de classe sociale, d'origine ethnique, de culture, de langue, d'habiletes cognitives et physiques et d'orientation sexuelle (voir entre autres Bouchard et St-Amand, 1996, 2005; Bouchard et al.; Mosconi, 1994; Cloutier, 2005).

Although the articles in this special edition reveal that many challenges in the four categories identified by Coulter and Briskin remain for girls and women in education, they also demonstrate that the social, political, and economic context in which women educators do their work has changed substantially. As a result, feminist scholarship has come to a more complex understanding of issues of access, curriculum, climate, and pedagogy for women and girls in education as they have become more conscious of how gender intersects with class, race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, and language (e.g., Blount, 2003; Ng, Staton & Scane, 1995; Razack, 1998) within the conditions of globalization (e.g., Blackmore & Sachs, 2007).

Dans la Francophonie, les 10 dernieres annees ont ete marquantes dans le champ de la recherche feministe en generale, et en particulier dans ses applications en education. Des theories et concepts feministes jusque la pris pour acquis ont ete questionnes a l'aune de leur caractere ethnocentrique, de leurs biais de classe sociale ou de leur acculturation a une terminologie anglaise dominante. C'est de cette reflexion qu'a entre autres emerge le choix du concept de roles sociaux de sexe pour ce numero thematique.

Researching and acting within this complex matrix of socioeconomic and political challenges has tested the limits of dominant feminist research methodologies, such as critical and interpretive approaches, as scholars have explored the efficacy of post-modern, post-structural, and psychoanalytic approaches to gender issues in education. Indeed, this edition signals the changes and challenges to feminist scholarship as its format blurs the textual divide between hard copy and on-line access. Further, its authors address a broad range of issues and educational contexts in which women educators are engaged as well as the variety of methodological approaches through which they understand the meaning of gender and education in the lives of girls and women.

With increasing social, economic, and political globalization, feminist scholars are taking up gender issues in international contexts and exploring the complexity of their own position in taking on this kind of work. Janzen names her position as a white, middle-class, female educator and the effects of her perspective as she explores the challenges to her definition of education as enacted in working with women in Agabagaya, Africa.