The paper begins with an overview of some of the main issues and challenges to be faced in interrogating the discourses around gender and schooling. These include the debate on gender and achievement at all levels of the education system, gendered patterns of curriculum choice, the gendered nature of school culture and schooling as a site for the reproduction of gender relations. The particular gendered discourses in teacher education are examined such as the concept of female ‘caring’ and the shaping of teacher identity in accordance with an ideology of teaching as an extension of motherhood. Finally the implications for teacher education are discussed in terms of a shift away from the discourse of teaching as women’s work and what this means for policy, curriculum change, and pedagogy for teacher educators.