1. Orientations Toward the Study of
Women s Education in the Third World
GAIL P. KELLY AND CAROLYN M. ELLIOT I
The number of women being educated in the Third World nations of
Africa， Asia， Latin America， and the Middle East and the amount of
education women receive have both expanded markedly since the 1960s.
Female enrollment in primary school has more than doubled， and at the
secondary and tertiary levels the increases have been as dramatic.1
Despite these gains， women remain under-represented at all levels of
education relative to men. Fewer females than males enter educational
programs， be they formal or nonformal; fewer receive technical and
vocational training; and women account for a very small proportion of
enrollment in postsecondary education.
The undereducation of women --its causes， the changes in female
education uatterns， and their signkficance both to societies and to
women s lives- is the focus of this volume. Our goal is to stimulate fur-
ther scholarship on the education of women in the Third World and
develop research that will serve as a basis for educational reform to
enhance women s participation in schooling， improve women s lives，
and ultimately promote social well-being. The underlying premises of
this book are that women ought to be educated， that education can have
beneficial effects on women， and that the current pattern of female
undereducation in the Third World can and should be changed.
The study of women s education is our major concern and we take
it very seriously. The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of ex-
cellent research studies on very important topics concerning
women-their roles and relative status， their participation in the work
force and in politics， their contribution to economic development， and
so forth. This scholarship is rich and highly relevant for understanding
the significance of education to women s lives. However， most of it does
not directly consider education. We learn little from this body of
knowledge about why women attend school， what they learn in school，
how education affects them， or whether education makes a contribution
to improving their lives apart from class， ethnicity， and other social
background factors. These are among the issues that we hope to il-
luminate in the following pages.
There is a considerable research literature on the education of
women in Western industrialized societies. Most studies have focused
on women s education in the United States and Canada， but there is a
sabelle Debld， The School Education of Girls (Paris: UNESCO， 1981
|
内容加载中，请稍后...
商品评论（0条）