Gender & Texts: A Professional Development Package for English Teachers

This collection of papers is based on a Professional Development Project funded by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English in 1997. It was conducted by the English Teachers' Association of Western Australia and draws together particular perspectives on using texts in the English classroom which address issues of gender and/or sexuality. One of the aims of this project was to provide an arena for English teachers to engage with translating current theoretical perspectives on reading and gender into classroom practice. In fact, the papers included as part of this package all make explicit the implications of particular social and cultural theories for developing specific kinds of pedagogical practices for encouraging students to read texts in quite specific ways. It is in this sense that they all address, in one way or another, how English teachers might work with particular texts, according to an explicit set of norms, to achieve certain objectives. The issues that are addressed by many of the authors range from a focus on gendered reading practices, as an effect of specific social trainings, to the role that sexuality plays or should play in discussions about the social construction of masculinities and their impact on the lives of both boys and girls. Such perspectives are in line with current research into both the politicised aspects of specific literacy practices