Education for women: whose values count?

Abstract

This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on women's education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as ideological in nature, rather than a technical matter of tackling ‘drop out’ from women's literacy classes or getting more girls into school. From talking about ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘access’, we need to think more about what is being changed to what and whose values underlie specific educational approaches.

Notes

Centre for Applied Research in Education, School of Education and Professional Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. Email: a.robinson‐[email protected]

The term Women In Development (WID) was first used in the 1970s and became the dominant approach, focusing on integrating women more fully in development. The Gender and Development (GAD) approach later marked a shift to focus on ‘gender’ (and specifically gender relations).

My use of this concept in this article draws on Escobar's (1995) work in analyzing dominant development discourses.

USAID for example, aimed to make 100,000 women literate within three years (USAID, 1998).

For those not familiar with ethnographic approaches to research, I should clarify here that I am not suggesting that my findings based on intensive research with a couple of literacy projects are generalizable nor representative of all literacy programmes in Nepal. Rather, the aim of this research was to develop concepts and, in this case, explore local understandings of gender and literacy education, which may be relevant to other contexts.

Translated from original letter in Nepali.

An ethnic group of Tibeto‐Burman origin, which lies outside the Hindu caste system.