Anastasia is a Normal Developer because she is Unique∗

∗South Australian Department of Education, 1985, Unit 7, p. 21.

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that the barriers to equitable classroom practice in primary schools are not reducible to a lack of goodwill on the part of teachers. In particular, it is argued that the way in which the beliefs and practices which are part of the natural child discourse, and which are explicitly promoted through the process approach to language learning, do not free the ‘natural ungendered child’ to emerge. Instead, they produce those very gendered practices, which are in turn defined through that same discourse as naturally emerging. The natural child discourse mitigates against the possibility of equitable practice because it does not make available to the teacher ways of identifying and dealing with inequitable relations of power and gender production. It is argued that teachers do not need a change of will so much as a new discourse of equity.

∗South Australian Department of Education, 1985, Unit 7, p. 21.

Notes

∗South Australian Department of Education, 1985, Unit 7, p. 21.