Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys' academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2011.611041]

In this paper, I posit a hybrid conceptualisation of women teachers' identities in the globalising and localising negotiation of gender. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridities, this paper argues for a fluid, hybrid and multifaceted reality of women teachers' lives in the areas of family, the husband and wife relationship, and the place of the child in the family as they engage in workplaces. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese women primary school teachers first individually and then in groups of four or five in Hong Kong where globalisation meets with the indigenous Chinese culture. Implications for teacher education are discussed.
[Copyright of Gender & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540250802581834]

Across the globe, many countries have incorporated new managerialism and marketization to reform their education systems. Feminist studies have already pointed out that these changes are gendered and masculinized and have documented their impacts on women teachers in secondary, higher and further education. Yet interestingly, while primary teaching is a feminized occupation, the ways that these changes and the associated practices are gendered and affected women teachers are relatively under-researched . This article, based on a case school in Hong Kong, attempts to fill this gap. By teasing out the gendered assumptions embedded in management strategies, it will show how an entrepreneurial school has attempted to succeed in a competitive educational market by exploiting young women, discriminating motherhood and forging competition among women of different educational qualifications. While making visible the patriarchal interests and masculine norms of the school, the article also aims to illuminate the contradictions and tensions inherent in, or generated, by those strategies.
[Copyright of Gender & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540250042000300394]

This paper examines the extent of gender differences, and discusses the role of gender in musical instrument learning. It focuses on the collective instrumental experiences of 1493 Chinese students (774 boys and 719 girls attending grades 7–13) within Western and non-Western musical traditions in Hong Kong. The discussion draws attention to gender differences in the learning of Chinese and Western musical instruments, in musical interest and instrumental learning, and in the reasons why students learn or do not learn musical instruments. The paper argues that, while female and male students exhibit different attitudes towards the types of instruments learnt, significant correlations exist between their interest in music and parental support for their instrumental learning. Gender is brought to the fore by the pedagogical actions of the teacher, the mass media and by parental efforts to reduce gender bias and stereotypes through school, public and family education.
[Copyright of Gender & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540250802537596]