Using Gender to Preserve Tracking's Status Hierarchy: The Defensive Strategy of Entrenched Teachers

Abstract

In a case study of a racially mixed high school undertaking detrucking, gender politics among the teachers emerged as a shaping force in the reform effort. This paper examines the politics of representation among two factions of teachers at the school. The reform, led by a party of female teachers, was derailed as a coalition of male teachers employed a gender discourse to successfully capture the dominant mode of representing what “school” means. The entrenched male teachers' efforts at maintaining a culture of patriarchy was part of their larger movement to maintain tracking's status hierarchy among students.