A feminist analysis of gender, education and development : the case of South Africa

Abstract

Heavily influenced by mainstream neo-liberal economic indicators, studies of gender, education and development in the South have focussed primarily on girls' and women's lack of equal access to education relative to that of boys and men and the socio-economic returns nations can expert from women's schooling. Little attention has been paid to the processes by which women's education is shaped and the context within which girls and women experience their primary and secondary education. Despite the rhetoric of gender equality, policy-makers, researchers and states have failed to address the gendered nature of students' formal education experience and the existence of gender inequalities in education which persist as part of a far broader societal pattern of female subordination. The relationship between patriarchy, power and girls' and women's subordination is ignored.

The education reform initiatives proposed in South Africa's White Paper on Education and Training (1995) fall within this dominant, neo-liberal, equal opportunity approach. Although these initiatives may help girls and women meet their practical gender needs, they will not assist them to realise any strategic gender needs. They will not achieve an anti-sexist education system. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)