5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Discourses against the so-called "gender ideology" are currently proliferating. From different digital and physical forums, political leaders, intellectuals and even family groups vociferously attack the intervention of feminist perspectives in the schooling of children and young people in different countries. In many countries, social and symbolic disputes are unfolding around how to understand human sexuality, gender expressions and identities. Since the 1970s in different countries (such as England and the United States) it is possible to trace feminist research in education from a sociological standpoint. Feminism has promoted fertile conceptual articulations that have expanded the interpretative horizons available to understand the ways in which compulsory schooling participates in the production, mitigation and/or subversion of educational and social inequalities. In this session we invite papers engaging with feminist questions, concepts and ways of knowing. We aim to make visible how this kind of research has challenged, expanded and enriched the knowledge produced in different latitudes of the Western world. We are particularly interested in contributions addressing one or more of the following topics: i) educational policies and their enactment; ii) the role of schools in the production or mitigation of educational inequalities; iii) teachers ‘work and labour identities; iv) the production of the curriculum; v) the processes of school inclusion and exclusion; vi) the production of gender and/or school identities; and vii) the processes of politicization of school life. We also welcome theoretical reflections tracing feminist contributions to the sociological study of schooling.