In response to Acker: black and African feminist theories on gender and education

ABSTRACT A 1987 paper by Sandra Acker remains a seminal academic contribution that identified and discussed the differences between three feminist schools of thought and their application to research and practice in education. Her analysis identified three Western feminist approaches- Liberal, Socialist and Radical and omits mention of Western Black feminist thought and any anti-imperial/indigenous feminist scholarship relevant to education. This article responds to Acker’s analysis presenting some of the work she omitted. Drawing on Black and African-feminist thought, the discussion distils some of their insights about gender issues in schools and considers some consequences for the scholarly field of gender, education and development of a canon based on a narrow range of feminist thought