Personal and Political

This work reviews education policy and academic developments since the 1970s. It explores the relationships between social and family change, political movements and public policy developments and shows how they have influenced theories, research and methodologies in the academy. It examines three phases of political change: social democracy/liberalism and the rise of social movements, especially feminism; economic liberalism; and neo-liberalism. It considers how each has influenced theories and practices around family, gender and higher education. Feminist theories in the academy have become embedded in the social sciences and new educational practices and pedagogy have developed around personal perspectives. The text shows how feminist research and ethnographic perspectives based on personal experiences, narratives, voices and stories are used to account for social and policy changes.