Gender Inequality in Education: accounting for women's subordination

Abstract

This article is an attempt to apply a systematic use of theory to gender inequalities in education. It expands on the tenets of liberal, radical, and socialist feminist perspectives to account for differential gender outcomes in terms of educational access, attainment, and field of study choices. The State emerges as a key actor regulating and promoting educational processes and outcomes, and the perspective that most accurately captures the State's practices is socialist feminism. There has been a recent convergence in feminist thought toward the meshing of ideological and material elements in the explanation of women's subordination, bringing closer than ever the radical and socialist feminist perspectives. These perspectives detect severe limits in the State's ability to improve women's conditions while groups outside the State, particularly women‐run organizations, are identified as the most likely sources of significant educational change and thus social change, in the interests of women.