Teachers, Gender and the Report of the Junior Secondary Review

This article focuses on the first Australian report on middle schooling, the Report of the Junior Secondary Review (hereafter JSR), (Eyers, Cormack & Barratt, 1992). This report has been a catalyst for the burgeoning interest in middle schooling in South Australia and is used as a key reference for studies in other Australian states. The final report on which this article is based was completed in October 1992, and attracted some media and academic interest (Cross, 1993). The Department of Education and Children’s Services subsequently used the JSR as the blueprint for its Action Plan in Middle Schooling (1994). Some commentators (Coote & Williams, 1996) suggest that it was a particularly useful resource for schools as they moved to implement middle school practices and over time it has become accepted as an authoritative document.