Defining and Redefining Gender Equity in Education

In the past 25 years there has been an enormous increase in the amount of research exploring issues of gender and schooling. New journals have been established, and in the older journals, special issues have been devoted to addressing gender equity in education.

For the editors this has raised some questions and concerns as we organized the topics for this first volume of the Research on Women and Education book series.

Janice Koch is Associate Professor of Science Education for the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York.

Her research explores the lives and work of women scientists and the experience of enhancing the science education of girls and women. She is the author of the elementary science methods text, Science Stories: A science methods book for Elementary School Teachers (2002, Houghton Mifflin) and co-author of Gender Equity Right from the Start and Gender Equity Sources and Resources for Education Students (1997, Lawrence Erlbaum). Dr. Koch teaches courses on Gender Issues in the Classroom and directs the graduate program in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at Hofstra University.

Beverly J. Irby is Professor and Director of the Center for Research and Doctoral Studies in the Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She is a member of the International Who’s Who of Women and has received the Texas Council of Women School Educators’ Outstanding Educator Award and the Renaissance Group Research Fellow Award. She is coauthor of the Administrator Appraisal System, cofounder and coeditor of Advancing Women in Leadership Journal, the first international, on-line refereed journal for professional women. She is also coeditor or coauthor of six books on women’s issues including Women in Leadership: Structuring Success, Women as School Executives:

A Powerful Paradigm, Women as School Executives: Voices and Visions.