" In the 1970s, feminists fought to reform sexist school curricula and challenged taken-for-granted tracking of boys and girls. Forty years later, drawing from personal experiences and insightful research in schools, Scott Richardson shows us that the job is far from finished. Informal interactions and stubborn sexist beliefs about gender difference still press girls and boys in primary, middle and high schools into different--and highly constraining--gender boxes. Anyone who cares about taking the next steps toward gender equality in schools will find in Gender Lessons a useful and hopeful map to a better future for our kids." -- Michael A. Messner, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, University of California, Berkeley and author of Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women " This book is unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high schools from both students' and teachers' perspectives.

These examples are familiar to anyone working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for many that can expose the frustrating and often heartbreaking nature of these taken-for-granted cultural norms." -- Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education, California Polytechnic State University and author of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools " Dr. Richardson has done an excellent job providing an accessible and scholarly analysis of the ways in which gender is taught and reproduced in school settings. His style of combining personal narratives with data from his team's detailed observations in schools give readers an engaging entry point to think carefully about what he calls sextyping. He provides many examples that describe and problematize everyday practices in average K-12 schools and classrooms.

These examples are familiar to anyone working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for many that can expose the frustrating and often heartbreaking nature of these taken-for-granted cultural norms. This book is unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high schools from both students' and teachers' perspectives. His writing is provocative, engaging, and contributes to an important body of research that can help parents, educators, and policy makers think differently about what effective and inclusive schools look like." -- Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education, California Polytechnic State University and author of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools " Read how kids and their teachers conspire to create the illusion that gender is uniform. In 'pledging the patriarchy' even the victors are victimized by the 'sextyping' schools accommodate and sometimes espouse.

Read about teachers who sometimes teach gender lessons to their students a little too 'up close and personal.' No muckraker, Richardson reports what he learned from his resounding research, not always telling us what we're supposed to learn but allowing the facts themselves to teach. But if you haven't learned your lesson by chapter 6, you'll grasp it then. (Ah, the French, once again). Even if Richardson didn't have kids--he has two, Mali and Maria--you know he'd make a great Dad, because he is a great teacher: 'My hope is that we might fully recognize children as complex individuals--that we go beyond any biological assignment, and resist the pressure to stereotype (sextype) how boys and girls are "supposed to act".' Scott Richardson understands. Read for yourself." -- William F.

Pinar, Ph.D., Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.