Research Aim: This study investigates the impact of marketisation and commodification in UK higher education on the curriculum, specifically focusing on gender inequality and the marginalization of working-class women. It advocates for a socially just curriculum through Itinerant Curriculum Theory (ICT).

Theoretical framework: Combining critical pedagogy (Freire, 1996), socialist feminist theory (Fraser, 2013), and ICT (Paraskeva, 2016), this research addresses power dynamics and the effects of current curriculum choices on gender and class intersectionality. ICT addresses the world’s endless epistemological diversity and advocates for social, cognitive, and intergenerational justice through non-derivative relevant pedagogical approaches.

Methods: This conceptual piece employs critical hermeneutical qualitative tools (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Lather, 2008; Kincheloe, 2011) alongside anti-colonial, decolonial, and Indigenous interpretative platforms (Smith, 1999; Darder, 2019) to excavate the evolution of higher education policies and their impact on curriculum design. Critical analysis systematically examines and evaluates underlying assumptions, power dynamics, and implications, ensuring well-founded changes that address gender inequality.

Findings: The study reveals that a commercialised curriculum, emphasising marketable skills, fails to meet the needs of working-class women and neglects socio-economic and cultural contexts. Undervaluing critical thinking, social justice, and cultural awareness perpetuates patriarchal biases and reinforces social hierarchies. Continuous curriculum evaluation and adaptation is essential for evolving student and societal needs. An Itinerant Curriculum framework would promote social justice, challenge inequalities, and empower all students, particularly working-class women.

Relevance to Conference theme and specific strand: Given current economic, environmental, and demographic challenges facing humanity, it is crucial to keep working on a theory that addresses the world’s onto-epistemological perspectives, needs, and desires. Paraskeva’s ‘itinerant curriculum theory’ challenges educational institutions’ epistemicidal nature, paving the way for equitable curriculum design and classroom.

This work presents an ongoing master's research project within the postgraduate program in education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The research focuses on analyzing how gender roles are both reproduced and challenged among a group of young girls participating in a technical computer science course that is integrated into high school at the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul. The study will utilize feminist theories with a post-structuralist orientation, as well as cultural studies, as its theoretical framework. It is understood that societal norms perpetuate gender roles that assign women to domestic responsibilities and, if they aspire to pursue a professional career, they are often expected to choose fields that, though in smaller proportions, are oriented toward caregiving and nurturing roles. To examine the gender dynamics within this technical course, the research proposes a case study methodology. This will involve a qualitative approach combined with the critical incident technique (TIC) to generate data that can reveal everyday situations related to hierarchical differences and gender relations within the course. The methodological tools to be employed include questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and conversation circles.The anticipated results of this research aim to illuminate how gender relations manifest in the course environment. Additionally, the research is expected to provide a framework for critical reflection for both the students and the institution regarding the gender dynamics and relationships that are established within the course. By highlighting these aspects, the study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of gender issues in educational settings and encourage discussions that could lead to more equitable practices and policies in the institution.

This paper explores how veteran teachers conceptualize an expanded notion of student safety, particularly for students with marginalized identities within U.S. religious private schooling contexts. Drawing on a synthesis of critical literature on the concept of “safe spaces” in education (Flensner & Von der Lippe, 2019; Barrett, 2010), this study examines the evolving discourse around expanded notions of student safety and how it intersects with religious school climate and regional political and dynamics. It addresses the ways teachers conceptualize these complexities, balancing the need for psychological and emotional safety with the politics of the teaching context. This study is drawn from a larger project involving 10 veteran educators in private Catholic K-12 schools across six U.S. states who participated in group discussions and individual interviews with researchers over the course of an academic year. These discussions reckoned with institutionalized forms of racism, ableism, and anti-LGBTQ views present in American Catholic school practices and enabled by the specific legal context and culture of the United States. Through an analysis of teacher reflections and collaborative discussions, educators articulated the development and selection of culture-setting strategies that establish their classrooms as sanctuary spaces and expand equitable cultures and practices. The findings suggest that teacher conceptions of student safety serve as a pedagogical bulwark against the “invisible curriculum” of school policy—unspoken norms and rules that often perpetuate inequality. Teachers, by fostering expanded notions of safety, resist these hidden forces and create more equitable learning environments. Additionally, the research identifies evidence of school cultures that purposefully obfuscate discussions of racism, ableism, and LGBTQ+ marginalization. This obfuscation paradoxically creates a demand for sanctuary spaces where these difficult conversations can occur. Teachers, in response, develop culture-setting practices that create spaces where students can safely engage in transformative discussions about power, identity, and justice.

The GEPEFERS research group has been dedicated to combating social injustices. Our discussions—based on the works Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (hooks, 2017) and Black Women Physical Education Teachers (Venâncio; Nobrega, 2020)—have generated new connections for us to think and act towards an anti-sexist and anti-racist education. The objective was to describe strategies to confront racist practices in the daily lives of students during physical education classes. We used (auto)biographical narrative (Passeggi; Souza, 2010), based on the experiences of a Black teacher-researcher working in elementary education in the public school system of São Paulo’s capital. She confronts situations of (un)conscious racist practices that are naturalized (Almeida, 2020; hooks, 2017). This account presents one of these actions where a pale 9th-grade student called her classmate “black” in a harsh and pejorative tone. The teacher-researcher, upon hearing such a comment, decided to intervene, using the situation to generate reflections on how our actions can be laden with inequities. We must educate ourselves about ethnic-racial relations, raising awareness that words, actions, and omissions impact others and, above all, that racism is a crime under current legislation. The student acknowledged the incident and apologized to her classmate. In conclusion, we reveal the urgency of raising society’s awareness of the racisms that persist, their structural causes, and the consequences for those who practice and suffer from them. GEPEFERS has been a means for teacher-researchers to encourage each other to confront discrimination based on their own life stories, building an education that provokes critical thinking and challenges the status quo of society, as all education has political foundations.