Feminist dilemmas: an Australian case study of a whole‐school policy approach to gender reform

Although Australia is unique for the level of state intervention and the extent of school‐based activity by feminist teachers in gender reform policy initiatives, the implementation of gender reforms has been partial, fragmented, and generally ‘addon’. By contrast, this is a case study of the integration of gender reform as a whole‐school approach. The study shows that assumptions about the nature of policy developments are as important as the substantive nature of policy, as are the ways in which feminist teachers grapple with dilemmas emerging out of their professional and personal lives. We present a feminist poststructural reading of the policy process as an alternative (and we believe better) way of understanding what happens to policy in schools‐‐how, why, and with what effect.