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In this paper, we undertake a particular policy critique and analysis of the gender achievement gap discourse in Ontario and Canada, and situate it within the context of what has been termed the governance turn in educational policy with its focus on policy as numbers and its multi-scalar manifestations. We show how this 'gap talk' is inextricably tied to a neoliberal system of accountability, marketization, comparative performance measures and competition within the context of a globalized education policy field. The focus initially is on how the gender achievement gap has emerged in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OCED) publication of the 2009 Program For International Student Assessment Results, but attention is drawn to questions and categories of equity that are used to define and measure socioeconomic disadvantage. We illustrate that such measures and categories in use function to eschew important aspects of maldistribution, with important consequences for understanding the significance of the interlocking influences of race, social class, gender and geographical location, where there is evidence of spatial concentrations of poverty and histories of cumulative oppression. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the Canadian data to illustrate the multi-scalar dimensions of global/national/provincial 'policyscapes' through a politics of numbers. Contrary to the ways in which Canada and specifically Ontario have been marketed and celebrated by OECD and other stakeholders for their high performing, high quality education system in terms of achieving equitable outcomes for diverse student populations, we illustrate how the 'failing boys' discourse and achieving 'gap talk' have actually functioned to produce a misrecognition of the gender achievement gap, with boys emerging as a disadvantaged category in the articulation of equity policies.

This article reports on research with one Black male elementary school teacher in Toronto and draws on feminist, queer, and antiracist analytic perspectives to raise important questions about the discourse of teachers as role models. The voice of this teacher is used to challenge discourses about role modeling in their capacity to address adequately the limits imposed by both cultural and structural problems experienced by minority boys in urban school communities. Important questions about the role of teachers as transformative or organic intellectuals are also raised. A case study approach is employed to draw attention to both important pedagogical issues and the limits of role modeling as a conceptual framework that continues to be used to support generalizable claims about the influence of male teachers on the basis of their gender and racial affiliation with boys in schools. What is required, the authors conclude, is a disarticulation and, hence, a separating out of role modeling from a discussion about the need for a greater representation of minority teachers in urban schools. . He has a background in research that deals with issues of masculinity, sexuality, and schooling. His interest in feminist and postcolonial theoretical perspectives on schooling continues to inform his critique of mainstream approaches to boys' education and the influence that is accorded to male teachers within the context of debates about addressing boys' underachievement.

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