Når en kønsneutral pædagogik ikke slår til

In this essay I reflect upon different strategies when encountering gender in school. Taking my point of departure in an essentialistic as well as a gender-neutral approach, I discuss the alternative of a gender sensitive approach to pupils in school; an approach that potentially will make more pupils feel included in school, and that will strengthen the school’s obligation to prepare pupils for a society in which they must relate critically and with reflections upon phenomena taken for granted.
I argue that both an essentialistic approach as well as a gender-neutral approach has built-in challenges in form of gender blindness and construction of deviance. In answer to this I unfold the notion of gender sensitive pedagogy as an approach that both acknowledges the existence of structural and societal gender stereotypes and gender biases and focuses on challenging these stereotypes and on equipping the pupils with tools that help them nuance and sharpen their focus on many ways of doing gender.