Uppeldi og menntun - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 66

BETUR M Á E F DUGA SKAL
ABSTRACT
This paper describes the results of an analysis of the new Icelandic curriculum for the
upper secondary school from the perspective of gender equality. In spite of legal
attempts to overcome the traditional views of the social and sexual contract by
stating clearly in the laws of equality and in ministerial policy that education at all
school levels should prepare both girls and boys for being active both in private and
public life and as citizens and provide education on equality, the new national
curriculum does not measure up to set standards. There is limited emphasis on
preparation for family life, on citizenship, and on equality education. Ideas of gender
neutrality and equal treatment are used but not those of mainstreaming. This is
explained by traditional criteria of the status of school subjects; essentialist ideas
about gender; the feminisation of family issues; and by the neo-liberal policy of
education which emphasizes performativity and marginalizes goals of equality. It is
important to improve education on democratically accepted goals, deconstruct
essentialist ideas of gender and gendered school subjects, include equality as a
criterion of school success and develop educational standards on equality in Iceland
and elsewhere. It is also important to find ways to overcome existing resistance to
change that seems to be of academic, political and historical nature and fight the
present gender backlash in Iceland.
Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir er
prófessor í uppeldis- og menntunarfræði
við Háskóla íslands.
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