Gender equality (GE) is something ‘we cannot not want’. Indeed, the pursuit of equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for all women and men throughout a society freed from gendered oppression is widely visible in recent organizational GE initiatives. In practice, however, GE initiatives often fail in challenging gendered norms and at effecting deep-seated change. In fact, GE measures tend to encounter resistance, with a gap between saying and doing. Using a GE project at a Swedish university, we examined the changing nature of reactions to GE objectives seeking to understand why gender inequality persists in academia. We used ‘resistance’ to identify multiple, complex reactions to the project, focusing on the discursive practices of GE. Focusing our contextual analysis on change and changes in reactions enabled a process-oriented analysis that revealed gaps where change is possible. Thus, we argue that studying change makes it possible to identify points in time where gendered discriminatory norms are more likely to occur. However, analysing discursive practices does not itself lead to change nor to action. Rather, demands for change must start with answering, in a collaborative way, what problem we are trying to solve when we start a new GE project, in order to be relevant to the specific context. Otherwise, GE risks being the captive of consensus politics and gender inequality will persist.

The chapter introduces the concepts of interstitial spaces and transgressive identities to examine the boundaries of gender and feminist studies, science, and education and discuss our research practices and positions. We use a metalogue as the vehicle for analyzing our autobiographies to provide examples when we have operated in interstitial spaces and engaged transgressive identities. Interstitial spaces exist between and within boundaries. These spaces are possible sites within a defined context (a discipline, a practice, a culture) that may be occupied by an actor/agent working as a “carrier” of different cultural practices, knowledge, and theories. A “carrier” can use the interstitial space to influence and challenge a “new” context and thus loosen up boundaries but can also by experiencing new cultures and developing new knowledge return to the “old” culture to integrate these new practices. Thus, interstitial spaces establish a context for transgressive identities to emerge so one can act in ways to transform and change the cultures of disciplines. We usetransgressive identities as a theoretical description and understanding of our research practices and positions.

A Chinese proverb observes that women “hold up half the sky”, yet often in science education we have ignored the knowledge generated by feminist researchers about how females engage and participate in science. Further, science education has often failed to consider the implications from feminist critiques of science on science education. This chapter will provide a feminist perspective on who generates knowledge in science education and what knowledge is acceptable as ‘scientific’ by the field. Second, we will discuss the culture of science education and discuss whether science educators value the knowledge produced by gender and feminist researchers. In particular, we will examine the integration (or lack thereof) of gender issues into the dominant areas in science education research, such as teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, the development of students’ science knowledge through inquiry, the role of conceptual change, and teachers’ preparation and professional development programs. Third, we will provide examples of how gender theory and feminist perspectives in science education could generate new knowledge about gender and science education.

This paper reports from a study exploring how an increased knowledge about gender issues can affect pre-school student teachers’ reflections and actions concerning science and technology activities. We have analysed written assignments given to student enrolled in a teacher education programme as well as group discussions that were part of their science and technology courses. One assignment was focused on describing situations during their pre-school placements where the students themselves judged gender to be important. The analysis identifies a reoccurring argumentation among the students that draws on an idea that children need to ‘be who they are’, thus portraying them as having a stable core identity. In this paper we ask what it means to let the children ‘be who they are’ and what the consequences of this view for developing the pre-school according to the curriculum and the education act can be. In doing so, we discuss issues that respectively may promote and hinder pre-school teachers to develop strategies that challenges stereotypical gender patterns. Furthermore, we problematize what consequences this might have for science teaching.

Several studies have shown that teachers treat girls and boys differently (Andersson 2010; Eidevald 2009; Stadler 2007). The authors in these studies also report that the step from being aware of the importance of equity and gender issues to actively putting equity into practice may be a large one, and it may be difficult to see one’s own behavior without some kind of help or support. Researchers in the field of science education have established that teachers’ assumptions and expectations of pupils are of importance for these pupils’ achievements in science subjects in school (Huang & Fraser 2009; Kahle & Meece 1994).

In an on-going project we want to illuminate in-service and student teachers’ as well as upper-secondary school students’ understandings of and attitudes toward gender. Moreover we want to challenge pre-conceived conceptions about gender and science. In doing so we introduce critical perspectives on gender as related to the nature of science, the culture of science and a feminist critique of the sciences. This presentation will focus on the use of ‘cases’ consisting of real school situations to highlight different issues of gender and to increase the awareness of their importance (Andersson, Hussénius & Gustafsson, 2009). The activities with the ‘cases’ give the participants tools for reflection which may increase the possibility for articulating thoughts about gender and science through verbal and written forms. The data collection consists of video-recorded group discussions, spontaneously responses to ‘cases’ written without prior considerations and semi-structured interviews. The empirical material is a source for exploring the process of the participants’ on-going negotiations of gender, science, and science teaching. Another objective with the study is to examine whether the case-method is a practicable way to bring about change.