Interesting times : a short introduction from the new editorial team of Gender and Education

As the incoming editorial team of Gender and Education we write this at an interesting moment for global gender politics. People in the UK have recently taken a vote to leave the EU with serious, albeit not yet known, implications for both women and education; the USA may be about to elect their first woman president; and in Australia, a national anti-bullying initiative assisting schools to support same-sex attracted and gender diverse youth has been subject to sustained conservative attack. Meanwhile, the burkini has raised new concerns in southern France about the policing of women's bodies and the Olympic Games in Rio has shown that old prejudices about gendered bodies and performativities remain strong. Turning to Syria we see people's lives dominated by a necropolitics oriented to war; and nationalistic movements and transnational fundamentalisms are on the rise in many parts of the world. These global contexts of inequality, violence and division make feminism increasingly more not less relevant, and continue to constitute education as, in bell hooks's words, a space of opportunity and hope, as well as of contestation and conflict.