Media Release
November 18, 2005
You go girl! A generation of gender equity in education
It was only 30 years ago that a revolution took place in Australian schools – no longer would girls be pigeon-holed into doing subjects seen as traditional or appropriate. They’d be encouraged to follow their dreams and build on their academic strengths, and society would be a richer, more equitable place for it.
Has this happened? This is the question to be addressed by Professor Alison Mackinnon, this year’s Clare Burton Memorial Lecturer. Prof Mackinnon, Foundation Director of the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia, has been published widely on the subject of education and its role in shaping women’s lives.
Entitled Girls, schools and society: a generation of change, the Clare Burton Memorial lecture will explore the agenda of a key text published by the Schools Commission in 1975, also called Girls, schools and society. The authors of the text hoped to increase girls’ school retention to senior levels, increase access to tertiary and vocational education and move to create a world where sex no longer dictated life patterns.
Thirty years on, record numbers of girls complete secondary schooling and go on to higher education, yet disadvantage remains. Young women who leave school at Year 9 or so are over-represented in long-term unemployment and opportunities for advancement.
This lecture will draw on the results of a recent study that looked at the lives of girls who left school early and their mothers. It will also consider the seesaw of broader options for women versus the demands of full-time work, which can lead to women deferring having children. Does this indicate that Australian society has created two cultures of womanhood and child-bearing?
The Clare Burton Memorial Lecture
Hosted by University of South Australia
When: 5.30pm, Wednesday November 23, 2005
Where: Mercury Cinema, 13 Morphett Street, Adelaide
Admission is free, bookings essential (08) 8302 1758
Contacts for Interviews
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Lyn Browning, office (08) 8302 1729 email lyn.browning@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
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Elizabeth Archer, office (08) 8302 0578 mobile 0417 718 051 email elizabeth.archer@unisa.edu.au