Schooling Girls, Queuing Woman ─ Middle Standpoints and Ongoing Inequalities

In spite of the fact that, among whites in the US, women now account for over half of four-year-college degrees earned, Moore (sociology and women's studies, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln) vigorously disputes the idea that gender equity has been achieved in the field of American education. Drawing from three strands of sociological theory--standpoint theory, materialist feminist analysis, and queuing theories that frame economic life as the core of social inequality--supplemented by insights from critiques of hegemonic masculinity and systems of racial domination and whiteness relating to schooling processes, she explores the ways in which women and girls still face gendered experiences in their everyday schooling lives and the ways that gender intersects with poverty or economic privilege, racial and ethnic diversity, sexual orientation and immigrant status. She further addresses the ways that these gendered experiences link to such social and economic patterns as queuing of women in specific fields of study, women's overwhelming presence as socially undervalued teachers, and the overrepresentation of some girls in dropout rates and as victims of "high-stakes" testing. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)