Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland

Abortion politics are contentious and divisive in many parts of the world, but nowhere more so than in Ireland. Abortion and Nation examines the connection between abortion politics and hegemonic struggles over national identity and the nation-state in the Irish Republic. Situating the abortion question in the global context of human rights politics, as well as international social movements, Lisa Smyth analyses the formation and transformation of abortion politics in Ireland from the early 1980s to the present day. She considers whether or not the shifting connections between morality, rights and nationhood promise a new era of gender equality in the context of nation-state citizenship.
The book provides a new sociological framework through which the significance of conflict over abortion and reproductive freedom is connected to conflict over national identity. It also offers a distinctive in-depth consideration of the connection between gender and nationhood, particularly in terms of its impact on women's status as citizens; within the nation-state; within the European Union; and as members of a global civil society.

The Effects of Social Class and Ethnicity on Gender Differences in GCSE Attainment: A Secondary Analysis of the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales 1997-2001

This article is based upon a secondary analysis of the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales 1998 and examines the effects of social class and ethnicity on gender differences in GCSE attainment for those who left school in 1997 (n = 14,662). The article shows that both social class and ethnicity exert a far greater influence on the GCSE performance of boys and girls than gender. Moreover, the article also shows that an interaction effect is present between social class and gender and also between ethnicity and gender in relation to their impact upon GCSE attainment. More specifically, the findings suggest that a strong correlation exists such that the lower the overall levels of educational attainment for any group (whether that group is defined in terms of social class or ethnicity), the higher the gender differences that exist between those within that group.

Constructions of locality and gender and their impact on the educational aspirations of working class children

Over recent years the moral panic that has surrounded 'boys' underachievement' has tended to encourage crude and essentialist comparisons between all boys and all girls and to eclipse the continuing and more profound effects on educational achievement exerted by social class and 'race'/ethnicity. While there are differences in educational achievement between working class boys and girls, these differences are relatively minor when comparing the overall achievement levels of working class children with those from higher, professional social class backgrounds. This paper argues that a need exists therefore for researchers to fully contextualise the gender differences that exist in educational achievement within the over-riding contexts provided by social class and 'race'/ethnicity. The paper provides an example of how this can be done through a case study of 11-year-old children from a Catholic, working class area in Belfast. The paper shows how the children's general educational aspirations are significantly mediated by their experiences of the local area in which they live. However, the way in which the children come to experience and construct a sense of locality differs between the boys and girls and this, it is argued, helps to explain the more positive educational aspirations held by some of the girls compared to the boys. The paper concludes by considering the relevance of locality for understanding its effects on educational aspirations among other working class and/or minority ethnic communities.