Madeleine Arnot

Madeleine Arnot (nee MacDonald) is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. She is Director of Studies (Education) at Jesus College. She is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Porto, Portugal and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and was recently Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, Stockholm University (2005), and held the George A Miller Visiting Professorship of the University of Illinois, USA (2000).

She has been actively involved in the development of sociology of education in the UK and abroad. Her primary interest is the role of education in relation to social inequalities and the promotion of social equality. She began her career as part of the Schooling and Society team at the Open University focusing specifically on social class issues. She is internationally known for her work on socio-cultural reproduction theory and her use of Bernstein's theory of pedagogy in relation to gender and education.

Since the l980s she has developed theories of gender codes and schooling focusing on, for example, the history of co-education, the curriculum, family and schooling, youth cultures and identities. She was commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission to assess the national impact of Conservative educational reforms on equal opportunities in schools. In l996-7 she directed an OFSTED commissioned project (with J. Gray, M. James and J. Rudduck) reviewing research on gender and educational performance. Her more recent publications analyse the gender policies of New Labour.

She became involved in the development of equal opportunities policy in education internationally, acting as consultant for Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Luxembourg, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Culture and Education, Argentina, the Ministry to the Presidency, Greece, and the EC Project on Teacher Training: Ministry for Equality between the Sexes, Portugal.

She is now interested in global citizenship education issues around girls' education in developing countries and is currently on the Steering Group for the Beyond Access: gender, education and development project and was on International Steering Group for UNESCO Education for All: Gender Monitoring Project. She is a member of the Executive Editorial Board of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, International Studies in Sociology of Education and an international editor on Gender and Education.

Education: MA (Edinburgh), PhD (Open).Married with a daughter and a son. Lives in Cambridge.