This text sets out to challenge the traditional power basis of the policy decision makers in education. It contests that others who have an equal right to be consulted and have their opinions known have been silenced, declared irrelevant, postponed and otherwise ignored. Policies have thus been formed and implemented without even a cursory feminist critical glance. The chapters in this text illustrate how to incorporate critical and feminist lenses and thus create policies to meet the lived realities, the needs, aspirations and values of women and girls. A particular focus is the primary and secondary sectors of education.

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- 1 Policy Analysis for Postsecondary Education: Feminist and Critical Perspectives /Estela Mara Bensimon and Catherine Marshall -- Part I: The Legitimized Formal Policy Arena -- 2 Women Managing for Diversity in a Postmodern World /Rosemary Deem and Jenny Ozga -- 3 Simply Not Good Chaps: Unravelling Gender Equity in a South African University /Melanie Walker -- 4 Affirmative Action and the Status of Women in the Academy /Judith S. Glazer -- 5 Legitimacy Maintenance: The Politics of Women's Studies /Catherine Marshall, Jean O' Barr and Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin -- Part II: The Politics of Silence and Ambiguity -- 6 Reframing Research, Informing Policy: Another View of Women in the Mathematics /Science Pipeline /Frances K. Stage -- 7 Enough is Never Enough: Women's Work in Academe /Sandra Acker and Grace Feuerverger -- 8 Lesbian Existence and the Challenge to Normative Constructions of the Academy /Estela Mara Bensimon -- Part III: New Politics, New Policy -- 9 School Identities and Subject Positions: Building a Feminist Policy within Schools for Adults /Geert ten Dam -- 10 Feminist Thinking in the Classroom Right Now /bell hooks -- 11 From Margin to Marginality: A Feminist in a PE Classroom /Robyn S. Lock -- 12 Feminist Pedagogy Theory in Higher Education: Reflections on Power and Authority /Carmen Luke -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.