Conference Agenda

Gender equity in education promotes equitable learning experiences and future opportunities for all students. For such equity to be realized, students need inclusive and meaningful learning environments. However, in many educational contexts, gendered norms and practices continue to shape students’ learning experiences. As part of hidden curriculum, these influences can affect female students’ subject choices and career aspirations (Wang et al., 2013; OECD, 2022).

One effective avenue to address this challenge is Freire’s (1970) critical pedagogy, which emphasizes that education should focus on developing critical consciousness through dialogue and problem-posing, enabling learners to connect their lived experiences to structural conditions and supporting autonomy and collaborative inquiry. Current educational challenge concerns whether students are supported to critically reflect on the assumptions that shape their learning.

In response to this challenge, this ongoing study assumes that double-loop learning holds the key. This study examines how double-loop learning can be elicited focusing on how female students examine underlying assumptions about their future aspirations. Argyris and Schön (1974) distinguish between single-loop learning, where individuals adjust actions to improve outcomes without questioning underlying assumptions, and double-loop learning, where individuals revise the assumptions, values, and beliefs that shape how situations are understood and how problems are framed (Argyris & Schön, 1974; Argyris, 1982, 1990).

To scaffold students’ autonomous construction of understanding and metacognitive sense-making (Green & Gredler, 2002), the study draws on the Japanese concept of kizuki, which refers to an ‘ah-ha moment’ that occurs when one begins to see a situation from a new perspective. Through such moments, individuals reinterpret their experiences and gradually develop their own practical theories of action (Inoue, 2012). For students in rapidly changing contexts, structured opportunities to encounter dissonance, uncertainty, or stuckness may function as pathways to kizuki, where reflection supports more informed and meaningful choices.

The ultimate goal of this ongoing study is to contribute to understanding how educational practices can support female students’ critical sense-making in contexts where learning and future choices are shaped by implicit assumptions and changing social conditions. By examining how structured reflection and dialogue can identify double-loop learning in relation to gender equity and other contextual influences, the study aims to point toward pedagogical approaches that help students engage meaningfully with their experiences and aspirations. The research questions for this study are:
1) How do secondary female students link their everyday experiences to gender equity issues and other social, institutional, and contextual factors during structured reflection and dialogue?
2) When does students reflections remain at the level of interpersonal attitudes and when does it involve assumption-level questioning or reframing?

Since girls were fully integrated into the mainstream education system, research has consistently shown that they, on average, outperform boys throughout compulsory schooling (e.g., Bergstrand, 2022; Brolin Låftman & Modin, 2011; Holmlund et al., 2021). Girls’ academic performance has also long been considered a key indicator of educational success in Swedish municipalities (Segerholm & Hult, 2018). Recently, however, the gender gap has narrowed due to declining outcomes among girls (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2025). At the same time, equity in Swedish education is decreasing (Francia & Åstrand, 2025) as a result of sociodemographic factors, despite a long-standing egalitarian tradition (Muench et al., 2023) and a legal framework emphasising equivalence across municipalities (Education Act, 2010:800). Declining results among girls is a trend that requires further investigation, making continued research in this area a shared Nordic, European, and international concern.

Empirical data show that some municipalities have long displayed gendered achievement patterns that diverge from the national norm, with boys outperforming girls over extended periods (Kolada, 2025). This raises fundamental questions about how formally equitable schooling systems can produce markedly different gendered outcomes across places. The project is based on the assumption that such variation reflects locally embedded social, cultural, and spatial conditions rather than school-internal factors alone.

Historically, girls have outperformed boys throughout compulsory schooling—a pattern that has generated a substantial body of research focused primarily on boys’ underachievement (Hillman & Brooks, 2025). Only recently have studies begun examining declining outcomes among girls, often linking these trends to factors such as social media use, extensive mental health issues, and increased performance pressure (Cashman, 2025; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2025). These explanations are, however, often treated in isolation from broader contextual conditions.

Previous research has documented gender differences in educational achievement (e.g., Bergstrand, 2022; Holmlund et al., 2021), but knowledge remains limited regarding how contextual and place-based factors interact over time to shape girls’ educational trajectories. Educational norms and gendered expectations appear to influence educational positioning and performance (Wahlgren, 2023). Earlier studies have mainly focused on school-internal processes, teachers’ expectations (Andersson et al., 2009), individual characteristics, or subject-specific outcomes, particularly in STEM education (Dennis et al., 2019; Hussenius, 2020; Lynch et al., 2024). Broader societal, cultural, and spatial dynamics remain comparatively underexplored.

Based on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (2010), this literature review analyses girls’ achievement in compulsory school from a Nordic historical discourse perspective. It traces the social, cultural, and spatial conditions through which girls’ achievement has been constructed in previous research. The analysis encompasses three dimensions: (a) textual analysis (description), (b) processing/interpretative analysis (interpretation), and (c) social analysis (explanation). It also examines the implications of previous research and identifies a research gap concerning girls’ performance in compulsory school.

National averages also conceal substantial local variation. Municipalities where boys have consistently outperformed girls suggest that current trends are not solely recent phenomena but reflect long-term, structurally conditioned processes. There is a clear need for conceptual frameworks that connect gendered educational outcomes to place-based societal conditions. The study therefore asks: How do societal and discursive conditions influence girls’ academic performance in contemporary compulsory education?