Kartini’s children: on the need for thinking gender and education together on a world scale

Abstract

A world policy agenda for gender equality in education now exists, realising the idea of earlier reformers such as Kartini. This agenda, however, makes assumptions that are strongly contested by research and policy debates in national forums. This essay urges shifting the framework of gender analysis to global scale. It outlines what is involved in thinking about gender as a worldwide structure, and reconstructing gender theory to include the intellectual work of the global periphery. It explores problems in theorising education on a world scale, as a process deeply linked with gender, and related dilemmas in policy thinking. Finally, it offers suggestions about the role of researchers on gender and education, and the importance of building an educational case for gender justice.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• gender justice
• global periphery
• education policy

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a keynote address to ‘Regulation and Resistance’, the conference of the Gender and Education Association, London, 25–27 March 2009. I am grateful to organisers and participants for the opportunity to be there and for the lively discussions that occurred.

Notes

1. By ‘metropole’ I mean the group of capital‐rich countries in North America and Europe, many of them former imperialist powers, that form the core of the global economy, have predominant military power and cultural hegemony. The global ‘periphery’ includes the poorest countries and regions, but also includes rich countries with dependent economies that are products of settler colonialism, including Australia and New Zealand. The relationships between these groups are historically dynamic, not fixed.