Hegemony through Education and Governance: Re-thinking gender education research and scholarship

Författare

Mina O'Dowd

Redaktör

Lennart Wikander

Summary, in English

In the increasingly global educational enterprise and all that it entails,a number of substantial changes can be traced in what is commonly viewed as education, its goals, its uses and usefulness. Over and above the broardly defined phenomenon of globalisation, the influence of suprantional regimes can be discerned. Supranational regimes have increasingly grown in power and importance, not least as regards their influence on education. Included in this term are such organizations as Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the European Union (EU) and the European Commission and its many directories.In other contexts two projects, lifelong learning and the Bologna process, have been discussed as regards their influence on education[1].

In this paper a closer look will be taken at the underlying hegemonic gender theory that is apparent in such initiatives as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA), as they function to re-produce what Fennell & Arnot (2008) term metropolitan gender theory."The concept of Education for All (EFA) with its implications for national growth is in effect an incentive to export current hegemonic gender theorising in education globally, encouraging other regions of the world to focus their attention on formal mass school (rather than informal education), open up individual ´choice biogaphies´and cultivate policies that release girls from the traditional cultures. In this context, the lack of critical engagement with and validation of ´Southern´ gender theory arguably disadvantages precisely those countries which are the target of the MGCs" (p. 526).

The aim of this paper is to problematise hegemonic gender theory, to discuss the new feminist research agenda advanced by Fennel & Arnot and to contribute to a "more globally informed field of gender education research".

[1] The importance of globalisation is acknowledged. However, the scope of this paper does not allow for the inclusion of this discussion here.

[i] O’Dowd, M (2009) “ The God that Failed. Lifelong learning: From Utopianism to Instrumentalism”. The Bulgarian Comparative Education Society, Conference proceedings, Vol. 7, 2009. (eds) James Ogunleye, Bruno Leutwyler, Charl Wolhuter and Marinela Mihova and O’Dowd, M. (2010) “The Bologna Process and The Re-structuring of Higher Education: Who will bear the brunt of “unexpected outcomes”? In Vandra Masemann (ed.) Papers in Memory of David N. Wilson: Clamouring for a Better World. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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