In the decade and a half since the United Nations designated 1975 as International Women"s Year to launch the Decade for Women, research into sex differences and gender in education has expanded, developed and deepened. It has been characterized by several trends. It has become more widespread, interdisciplinary and international, almost all major countries contributing to new research paradigms. It has, at last, become respectable, in direct measure to the extent that it is the more rigorous and scholarly - and better funded. And gender research has led the field in being increasingly policy-oriented.