A Gender Agenda: A Sociological Study of Teachers, Parents, and Pupils in Their PrimarySchools. by Terry D. EvansReview by: Nancy C. GillilandSocial Forces, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Dec., 1991), pp. 546-547Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2580271 .

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546 / Social Forces 70:2, December 1991

the "orthodox" audience would require precisely that selling out to modernity that drove conservative Protestants into their enclaves, away from what appeared to be the secularizing path of the main line denominations. To some extent, such accommodation has already appeared, particularly among the most politicized televangelists Uerry Falwell). Bruce sketches a process of internal secularization from New England Calvinism through an expanding national Arminianism, which accumulated variations on perfectionist pentacostalism, to broadening signs of secularity. He argues that, "the Gospel now preached by televangelists departs from the conservative Protestantism of the post-War years. The social ethic is dead. Asceticism is dead. More than that, hard work is dead."

Two chapters (8 and 9) continue his central concern with the interplay between mass media evangelism and politics from the radio days of Father Coughlin to Pat Robertson's devastating repudiation in the Republican Bible Belt primaries of 1988.

Robertson's fate provides the centerpiece for Bruce's critique, which recurs throughout the book, of those American observers who he feels construct an unreal picture of the potential power of the new Christian Right. He regards this "hysterical" view as so off-the-wall that it requires an explanation, which he suggests may stem from several possible sources, such as a liberal need for really big bogeymen or a desire to inflate the importance of their subject matter, both of which might contribute to selling books.

Bruce avers that greater emphasis upon some comparative cases might have tempered these excesses. In the Dutch case, for example, bitterly competing Protestant and Catholic parties were forced into coalition not only with each other but with the conservative wing of the secularists to survive in the struggle for power and in so doing watered down their religious identities to near nullity. Chapter 11 continues this comparative theme into the "New, Third, and Old World" in order to reflect briefly on the possible impact of American television and evangelism outside the domestic market.

Finally, on a more theoretical note, he attributes their misguided conclusions to "contestable assumptions about a society's need for a shared value system" Bruce apparently shares Charles Tilly's view of a reified concept of society as one of those pernicious postulates that have hindered the construction of more plausible explanatory strategies for so long.

A Gender Agenda: A Sociological Study of Teachers, Parents, and Pupils in Their Primary Schools. By Terry D. Evans. Unwin Hyman, 1988. 160 pp. $14.95.

Reviewer: NANCY c GILLILAND, Moorhead State University

This small volume is a report of a research project carried out in Australia by the author and an assistant in 1983 and 1984. They studied one town and one rural school that were representative of Australian schools of their size and location. They used a variety of research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, to study the ways in which gender affected the life of primary schools. Quantitative data from census, school records, and other sources for the

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Book Reviews / 547

two communities studied are reported in appendixes. Quantitative data from classroom observations are presented in a chapter entitled "Classroom Life." Interviews and observations provide most of the material in the book, which reads like an ethnography.

This book is intended for a broad audience, including academics, students, teachers, and others. Apparently the author has relatively little concern for theory because he states in the preface that the theoretical chapter can be skipped and that he has "tried not to encumber the reader with volumes of theory." There is a "gentle theoretical current" throughout the book, by which I assume he means his introduction of the concept gender agenda. For me, this concept was elusive. The first time it appeared, on page 2, it was left undefined as if its meaning were obvious. On page 7 Evans states, "an agenda is formed of ideas, issues, and problems flowing from previous practice which shapes ... immediate practice." Gender is one element influencing this agenda. Evans also distinguishes among personal, collective (in this case school), and societal agendas. Often it seemed to me that gender agenda was another term for script, role, or expectations; however, in the concluding chapter it appears that Evans is using the term to describe the social production of gender. In any case, the book dealt with how gender expectations are (consciously and unconsciously) transmitted from adults to children at home and in the schools, and how they are changed (and who has the power to change them) in the process.

Despite some lack of conceptual clarity, there is much of value here. The book provides a clear empirical example of the centrality of gender as an organizing principle in social life, and the relationship between macro- and microsocial structures and processes. Since one community studied is working class and the other middle class, the book also shows the interaction of gender and class in influencing schools.

The book is divided into two parts. The first, focusing on adults, has chapters (one each) on the school councils, teachers, and parents. The second part has chapters on "Pupil Knowledge and School Agendas," and "Classroom Life." The former describes what children perceive about gender based on school curricula and their own observations of the adult world. Sometimes the two are contradictory, as when a teacher who is sensitive to sexism when choosing curriculum materials reveals her own hidden assumptions about gender when she explains why she is late to school one day (cars are the province of men). The chapter on classroom interaction reported an unusual finding compared to prior research: that girls, not boys, initiated more interac- tions with teachers. Interestingly, most of the interactions girls initiated with teachers turned out to be for seeking affirmation or reassurance.

Having used a feminist or "gender critical" perspective throughout the book, the author concludes with a discussion of change toward gender equality: how new gender agendas can replace old ones. This book would be useful as a supplementary text for courses in the sociology of either gender or education.

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