Date of Award

2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Education

Abstract

There is an increasing focus on the recognition of women and girls' education as a universal right. Many feminist scholars have questioned this rights-based approach to gender education and evaluated the challenges and solutions based on the international policy discourse. What is notably absent from this scholarship is a comprehensive look at how women and girls' demand for education is constructed though such universal declarations.

This thesis uses a postcolonial feminist framework to analyze how women and girls' demand for education is constructed through international gender education policy. Ultimately, through an analysis of policy and an assessment of the feminist scholarship on gender education, this thesis unpacks four implicit conditions which underpin demand and reinforce a modern, neoliberal governmentality. These conditions are the essentialization of third world women, the unchallenged authority of Enlightenment philosophies, the focus of gender and education in an isolated sphere, and the problematization of women's bodies.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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