Jerome Bruner
is often credited with originating discovery learning in the 1960s, but
his ideas are very similar to those of earlier writers such as John Dewey.
Bruner argues that "Practice in discovering for oneself teaches one to
acquire information in a way that makes that information more readily
viable in problem solving".
This philosophy later became the discovery learning movement of the
1960s. The mantra of this philosophical movement suggests that people
should "learn by doing".
The label of discovery learning can cover a variety of
instructional techniques. According to a meta-analytic review conducted
by Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, and Tenenbaum (2011),
a discovery learning task can range from implicit pattern detection, to
the elicitation of explanations and working through manuals to
conducting simulations. Discovery learning can occur whenever the
student is not provided with an exact answer but rather the materials in
order to find the answer themselves.
Discovery learning takes place in problem solving situations
where learners interact with their environment by exploring and
manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or
performing experiments, while drawing on their own experience and prior
knowledge.
Characteristics
Discovery-based
learning is typically characterized by having minimal teacher guidance,
fewer teacher explanations, solving problems with multiple solutions,
use of hand-on materials, minimal repetition and memorization.
There are multiple essential components that are required for successful discovery-based learning which include the following:
Teacher guidance where the emphasis is on building upon students’ reasoning and connecting to their experiences
Classroom culture where there is a shared sense of purpose between
teacher and students, where open-mindedness and dialogue are encouraged
Students are encouraged to ask questions, inquire through exploration and collaborate with teacher and peers
Teacher's role
It
has been suggested that effective teaching using discovery techniques
requires teachers to do one or more of the following: 1) Provide guided
tasks leveraging a variety of instructional techniques 2) Students
should explain their own ideas and teachers should assess the accuracy
of the idea and provide feedback 3) Teachers should provide examples of
how to complete the tasks.
A critical success factor to discovery learning is that it must
be teacher assisted. Bruner (1961), one of the early pioneers of
discovery learning, cautioned that discovery could not happen without
some basic knowledge. Mayer (2004) argued that pure unassisted discovery
should be eliminated due to the lack of evidence that it improves
learning outcomes. Discovery learning can also result in students
becoming confused and frustrated.
The teachers’ role in discovery learning is therefore critical to the success of learning outcomes. Students must build foundational knowledge
through examples, practice and feedback. This can provide a foundation
for students to integrate additional information and build upon problem
solving and critical thinking skills.
Benefits and limitations
Early
research demonstrated that directed discovery had positive effects on
retention of information at six weeks after instruction versus that of
traditional direct instruction.
It is believed that the outcome of discovery based learning is
the development of inquiring minds and the potential for life-long
learning.
Discovery learning promotes student exploration and collaboration
with teachers and peers to solve problems. Children are also able to
direct their own inquiry and be actively involved in the learning
process which helps with student motivation.
Discovery learning is not without limitations, however. Some
studies show that students in discovery situations are more likely than
those receiving direct instruction to encounter inconsistent or
misleading feedback, encoding errors, causal misattributions, and
inadequate practice and elaborations. In these cases, direct instruction
has been shown to be an efficient way to teach procedures that are
difficult for students to discover on their own, such as those involved
in geometry, algebra, and computer programming.
Assisted vs. unassisted discovery
A debate in the instructional community now questions the effectiveness of this model of instruction.
The debate dates back to the 1950s when researchers first began to
compare the results of discovery learning to other forms of instruction.
In support of the fundamental concept of discovery learning, Bruner
(1961) suggested that students are more likely to remember concepts if
they discover them on their own as opposed to those that are taught
directly.
In pure discovery learning, the learner is required to discover
new content through conducting investigations or carrying out procedures
while receiving little, if any, assistance. "For example, a science
teacher might provide students with a brief demonstration of how
perceptions of color change depending on the intensity of the light
source and then ask them to design their own experiment to further
examine this relationship".
In this example the student is left to discover the content on his/her
own. Because students are left to self-discovery of topics, researchers
worry that learning taking place may have errors, misconceptions or be
confusing or frustrating to the learner.
Research shows that cognitive demands required for discovery in
young children may hinder learning as they have limited amounts of
existing knowledge to integrate additional information. Bruner also
cautioned that such discovery could not be made prior to or without at
least some base of knowledge in the topic. Students who are presented with problems without foundational knowledge may not have the ability to work though solutions. The meta-analyses conducted by Alfieri and colleagues reconfirmed such findings.
Mayer (2004) argues that unassisted discovery learning tasks do
not help learners discover problem-solving rules, conservation
strategies, or programming concepts. He does acknowledge, however that
while under some circumstances constructivist-based approaches may be
beneficial, pure discovery learning lacks structure in nature and hence
will not be beneficial for the learner. Mayer also points out that
interest in discovery learning has waxed and waned since the 1960s. He
argues that in each case the empirical literature has shown that the use
of pure discovery methods is not suggested, yet time and time again
researchers have renamed their instructional methods only to be
discredited again, to rename their movement again.
Alternatively, direct ‘instruction where working examples,
scaffolding techniques, explicit explanation and feedback are beneficial
to learning (Alfieri, 2011). In addition, time spent practising newly
learned concepts improves problem solving skills (Pas and Van Gog,
2006).
There appears to be benefits to both direct instruction and assisted discovery.
In special needs education
With
the push for special needs students to take part in the general
education curriculum, prominent researchers in this field doubt if
general education classes rooted in discovery based learning can provide
an adequate learning environment for special needs students. Kauffman
has related his concerns over the use of discovery based learning as
opposed to direct instruction. Kauffman comments, to be highly
successful in learning the facts and skills they need, these facts and
skills are taught directly rather than indirectly. That is the teacher
is in control of instruction, not the student, and information is given
to students (2002).
This view is exceptionally strong when focusing on students with math disabilities and math instruction. Fuchs et al. (2008) comment,
Typically developing students profit from the general education
mathematics program, which relies, at least in part, on a
constructivist, inductive instructional style. Students who accrue
serious mathematics deficits, however, fail to profit from those
programs in a way that produces understanding of the structure, meaning,
and operational requirements of mathematics ... Effective intervention
for students with a math disability requires an explicit, didactic form
of instruction ...
Fuchs et al. go on to note that explicit or
direct instruction should be followed up with instruction that
anticipates misunderstanding and counters it with precise explanations.
However, few studies focus on the long-term results for direct
instruction. Long-term studies may find that direct instruction is not
superior to other instructional methods. For instance, a study found
that in a group of fourth graders that were instructed for 10 weeks and
measured for 17 weeks direct instruction did not lead to any stronger
results in the long term than did practice alone.
Other researchers note that there is promising work being done in the
field to incorporate constructivism and cooperative grouping so that
curriculum and pedagogy can meet the needs of diverse learners in an
inclusion setting.
However, it is questionable how successful these developed strategies
are for student outcomes both initially and in the long term.
Effects on cognitive load
Research has been conducted over years
to prove the unfavorable effects of discovery learning, specifically
with beginning learners. "Cognitive load theory suggests that the free
exploration of a highly complex environment may generate a heavy working
memory load that is detrimental to learning".
Beginning learners do not have the necessary skills to integrate the
new information with information they have learned in the past. Sweller
reported that a better alternative to discovery learning was guided
instruction. According to Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006), guided
instruction produces more immediate recall of facts than unguided
approaches along with longer term transfer and problem-solving skills.
Enhanced discovery learning
Robert J. Marzano
(2011) describes enhanced discovery learning as a process that involves
preparing the learner for the discovery learning task by providing the
necessary knowledge needed to successfully complete said task. In this
approach, the teacher not only provides the necessary knowledge required
to complete the task, but also provides assistance during the task.
This preparation of the learner and assistance may require some direct
instruction. "For example, before asking students to consider how best
to stretch the hamstring muscle in cold weather, the teacher might
present a series of lessons that clarify basic facts about muscles and
their reaction to changes in temperature".
Another aspect of enhanced discovery learning is allowing the
learner to generate ideas about a topic along the way and then having
students explain their thinking.
A teacher who asks the students to generate their own strategy for
solving a problem may be provided with examples in how to solve similar
problems ahead of the discovery learning task. "A student might come up
to the front of the room to work through the first problem, sharing his
or her thinking out loud. The teacher might question students and help
them formulate their thinking into general guidelines for estimation,
such as "start by estimating the sum of the highest place-value
numbers". As others come to the front of the room to work their way
through problems out loud, students can generate and test more rules".
Inequalities in education for girls and women are complex: women
and girls face explicit barriers to entry to school, for example,
violence against women or prohibitions of girls from going to school,
while other problems are more systematic and less explicit, for example,
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education disparities are deep rooted, even in Europe and North America.
In some Western countries, women have surpassed men at many levels of
education. For example, in the United States in 2005/2006, women earned
62% of associate degrees, 58% of bachelor's degrees, 60% of master's
degrees, and 50% of doctorates.
Improving girls' educational levels has been demonstrated to have
clear impacts on the health and economic future of young women, which
in turn improves the prospects of their entire community. The infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate. In the poorest countries of the world, 50% of girls do not attend secondary school.
Yet, research shows that every extra year of school for girls increases
their lifetime income by 15%. Improving female education, and thus the
earning potential of women, improves the standard of living for their own children, as women invest more of their income in their families than men do.
Yet, many barriers to education for girls remain. In some African
countries, such as Burkina Faso, girls are unlikely to attend school for
such basic reasons as a lack of private latrine facilities for girls.
Education increases a woman's (and her partner's and the family's) level of health and health awareness.
Furthering women's levels of education and advanced training also tends
to delay the initiation of sexual activity, first marriage, and first
childbirth.
Moreover, more education increases the likelihood of remaining single,
having no children, or having no formal marriage while increasing levels
of long-term partnerships. Women's education is important for women's health
as well, increasing contraceptive use while lowering sexually
transmitted infections, and increasing the level of resources available
to women who divorce or are in a situation of domestic violence. Education also improves women's communication with partners and employers and their rates of civic participation.
Because of the wide-reaching effects of female education on
society, alleviating inequalities in education for women is highlighted
in Sustainable Development Goal 4 "Quality Education for All", and deeply connected to Sustainable Development Goal 5 "Gender Equality".
Education of girls (and empowerment of women in general) in developing
countries leads to faster development and a faster decrease of population growth, thus playing a significant role in addressing environmental issues such as climate change mitigation. Project Drawdown estimates that educating girls is the sixth most efficient action against climate change (ahead of solar farms and nuclear power).
Issues
Violence against women
Violence against women students became a political issue in Sweden during the period from 1900 to 1940.
By 1900, 66 percent of Sweden's teachers were women, many of whom
worked in isolated rural areas, where they faced loneliness and the
threat of male violence. Politicians, teachers, and female authors
debated a number of solutions to reduce these threats, such as providing
the teachers with guard dogs, weapons, and telephones.
In Pakistan, a negative relationship was found between the formal
level of education a woman attains and the likelihood of violence
against that woman (After, 2013).
The researcher used snowball convenient sampling, a sampling method
where participants are referred. Ethical and privacy issues made this
the most convenient method. An informant played a major role in
gathering information that was then cross-checked. The sample of victims
of violence was made up of married women from ages 18–60 both from
rural and urban communities. The study described different forms of
physical violence that are already present and provided an idea of what
women go through, even across communities (rural and urban). Education
in this study was stressed to be the solution and a necessity in
eliminating violence. A discussion of political and social barriers is
needed.
The relationship is a lot more complicated than it seems, women
can be illiterate but still become empowered (Marrs Fuchsel, 2014).
Immigrant Latina Women (ILW) were part of a qualitative study of 8 to 10
participant groups, at a time, and completed an 11-week program
centered on self-esteem, domestic violence awareness, and healthy
relationships. Immigrant Latina Women (ILW) is a highly affected group
by domestic violence. Though this program took place outside of a
traditional classroom, dialogue, critical thinking, and emotional
well-being were stressed, areas that should be acquired while in school.
Lastly, though many of the women were illiterates they were still able
to come away with a stronger sense of control over their own lives, an
important life skill.
Different countries experience various forms of violence against
women and girls, which in Nigeria, UNICEF noted 16 facts about such
incidence.
Some of those facts include: physical effects, psychological effects,
short-term and long-term effect; effects on the victims, the children,
the society among others There are factors that promote violence
against women, which should be made open to the public. There is need
for proper women and girl education to save them from the tragedy called
violence. Development can be possible if individuals are able to learn
positive habits that will shied them away from violence. World Health
indicated that around the globe about 30% of women experience violence
either by intimate sex mate or relatives.In the 1980s, Zambia brought in schooling at all levels.
Women's empowerment
Education systems vary in administration, curriculum and personnel, but all have an influence on the students that they serve.
As women have gained rights, formal education has become a symbol of
progress and a step toward gender equity. In order for true gender
equity to exist, a holistic approach needs to be taken. Different places
have different challenges requiring different solutions. However,
focusing on women's empowerment in educational systems worldwide is
shown to be successful.
The discussion of girl power and women's education as solutions for
eliminating violence against women and economic dependence on men can
sometimes take dominance and result in the suppression of understanding
how context, history and other factors affect women (Shenila Khoja-Moolji, 2015). For example, when past secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, referenced the tragedies of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan and the girls kidnapping in Chibok, Nigeria,
as comparable, using girls' education as the focus, history and context
were ignored. What led to the shooting of Malala was reduced to being
solely about her educating herself as a girl. United States
interference, poverty, and government corruption and instability were
not addressed.
Education systems and schools play a central role in determining
girls' interest in various subjects, including STEM subjects, which can
contribute to women's empowerment by providing equal opportunities to access and benefit from quality STEM education.
To enhance female literacy in Bangladesh, the government has
implemented a range of programs. These initiatives encompass
distributing free books to all primary schoolchildren, providing free
education for girls up to the university level, and granting stipends to
girls attending rural secondary schools.
Gender equity goes further than simply enabling access to school;
the curriculum also matters. There is a need to focus in schools on
boosting girls' confidence and capacity to equally participate in
society.
The type of instruction teachers are using in the classroom determines
empowerment among females and gender equality. Successful projects in
Peru and Malawi have conducted teacher training using teaching guides
for gender-sensitive instruction. The teacher guides have been created
by Visionaria Network from Peru, and Girls Empowerment Network from
Malawi. They both received grants from WomenStrong International.
These projects creates guides and teacher trainings for teachers to
support gender sensitivity in classrooms and support girls in
recognizing and reaching their full potential.
Impact on socio-economic development
The socioeconomic impact of female education constitutes a significant area of research within international development.
Increases in the amount of female education in regions tends to
correlate with high levels of development. Some of the effects are
related to economic development. Women's education increases the income of women and leads to growth in GDP. Other effects are related to social development. Educating girls leads to a number of social benefits, including many related to women's empowerment.
A systematic review
on vocational and business training for women in low- and middle-income
countries summarized the evidence from thirty-five studies regarding
the impacts of such training programs. The authors found that these
types of programs have small positive effects on employment and income
with variability across studies. They found that the effects of training
may increase with a stronger gender focus of the program.
Environmental impact
Education
of girls (and empowerment of women in general) in developing countries
leads to faster development and a faster decrease of population growth. It therefore has a significant impact on environmental issues such as climate change. The research network Drawdown estimates that educating girls is the sixth most efficient action against climate change (ahead of solar farms, nuclear power, afforestation and many other actions).
Specific types of education
Technology education
The proliferation of digital technology and digital services has made digital skills a prerequisite for full participation in society. Today, an inability to navigate the internet
poses disadvantages. While these disadvantages were once somewhat
contained to wealthy countries, they are now relevant globally, due to
the rapid and continuing proliferation of internet-connected technology.
Equipping women and girls with digital skills helps put them on
equal footing with digitally savvy men, and opens up countless
opportunities for increased agency and choice. Websites and mobile applications on health and legal rights,
for example, can help women make informed decisions to safeguard and
care for themselves and their families, while online social networks and
digital communications allow women to disseminate information and share knowledge beyond their immediate community.
Mobile learning opportunities, from literacy apps to open online courses (MOOCs) about subjects as diverse as astronomy
and caring for older relatives with dementia, can open up new
educational pathways, especially for out-of-school girls and adult
women. Job search engines and professional networking sites enable women to compete in the labour market, while e-commerce platforms and digital banking services can help increase their income and independence.
STEM education
Percentage
of female students enrolled in engineering, manufacturing and
construction programmes in higher education in different parts of the
world
The organization UNESCO has stated that this gender disparity is due to discrimination, biases, social norms and expectations that influence the quality of education women receive and the subjects they study. UNESCO also believes that having more women in STEM fields is desirable because it would help bring about sustainable development.
Disability
Education
for disabled women has also improved. In 2011, Giusi Spagnolo became
the first woman with Down Syndrome to graduate college in Europe (she
graduated from the University of Palermo in Italy).
History
Africa
Christian
missionaries in the 19th century opened modern educational methods, but
they usually focused on boys. After early experiments they settled on
promoting ideology of domestic femininity imparted through girls'
schooling. In South Africa
after 1820, male Scottish missionaries decided that only the most basic
education was necessary to prepare native women for the propagation of
Christianity within the home. They prevented female teachers from
operating in the Scottish mission's territory. They delayed the
establishment of a Girls' Department at Lovedale Institution.
Finally new leadership arrived who had a broader vision of uplifting
native women so they could promote Christianity and Western gender
codes.
As of 2015, Priscilla Sitienei was attending elementary school in Kenya at age 92. She died in November 2022, at the age of 99, whilst preparing for final exams.
West Africa
Pre-colonial
Women's education in West Africa manifested in both formal and
informal structures, with one of the more notable structures that had
influence on women's education being preparatory schools labeled "Bush
Schools".
These bush schools were institutions that would oftentimes boast near
100% graduation rates and completed courses. They were organized by
women and had a planned, structured curriculum, which included learning
how to do skills such as learning how to "fish, cook, weave, spin
cotton, dress hair, and make baskets, musical instruments, pots, and
fishing nets."
Much of the scholarship and research on these schools arises from the
Bundu schools of Sierra Leone. In addition to these skills, girls would
often be given reproductive education, such as birth control techniques
or child rearing skills. In particular to the Bundu schools, women would
be given an intense education in medicinal herbs and home medicinal
skills.
These schools did not just teach educational curriculum (such as
history passed on through songs and dances), but enabled the
transmission of cultural values and were centers of female power.
Despite the colonial and post-colonial ideal that women ought to be
educated just to serve decorative or child-bearing maternal roles, these
institutions taught women to play central economic, corporate and
familial roles in their communities.
Traditional education in West-Africa that predates colonial
influence came about through the passing of skills, values, and
knowledge from experienced elders to the youth. Some African societies
would have initiation ceremonies, where the female children were taught
history and mothercraft. They were “trained physiologically, socially
and morally to enable them to become competent mothers and wives.” For the Poro
society of West Africa, this form of schooling could last up to five
years, while in the Tonga of Zambia it could range from six weeks to
four months. In these forms of initiations, the children would be sent
out to a specific location where they would be observed by professional
teachers.
In the 19th century, Nana Asmaʼu (1793–1864) founded the Yan Taru movement for the education of Sokoto women.
Early colonial forms of education on the West African coasts, particularly among the Dahomey, Asante and Yorùbá
people, were pioneered by missionaries and institutions that were
trying to educate religious thought in addition to teaching more
traditional western educational topics such as reading and writing.
As early as 1529, King John III of Portugal had given instruction to
open schools and provide education in "religious thought, reading and
writing" and for the instructors to be paid by the pupil.
For women in particular however, these colonial forms of education
brought with them European ideals of women's roles in the family,
society and economy. These Western ideas of womanhood oftentimes
contrasted with women's roles in the economy, society, or in the home. For example, Igbo women had associations known as Mikiri,
which were economic and social forums for women in which they discussed
direct action to enforce their interests, which were largely
misunderstood and disregarded by various British colonial
administrations. Hence, as the colonial administrations introduced
schools to the region, they ignored educating women to fill economic
roles in the community. In fact, the educational ideal of men as "breadwinners",
i.e. the primary financial support of a nuclear family structure, was
introduced by successive British colonial governments in West Africa.
One of the groups of people that the colonial governments in West
Africa put heavy import on educating were the mixed children of white
people, typically men, and indigenous people, typically women. In
pre-British era of Ghanaian history, when much of the interaction
between indigenous people and Europeans was through Dutch traders, mixed
race children of traders and indigenous people were removed from their
indigenous communities and placed in Dutch educational institutions in
Ghana.
In these early colonial schools the education was also gendered by
Western standards: the boys were educated from a young age to be
military officers in the Dutch army and the girls were educated to be
married to Dutch military officers in the region.
One of the other ways through which colonizing countries were
able to exert influence and indirect rule over the indigenous people was
through maternal education. In colonial Ghana, Methodist missionaries led classes teaching western methods of hygiene and child birth to the indigenous mothers or mothers-to-be.
The missionaries tried to construct an ideal of motherhood that matched
white European middle-class standards, irrespective of the social
context of the ideals of motherhood in place in the Asante societies they were located in.
Contemporary
In
post-colonial West Africa, many of the ideals of Western education have
remained while much of the infrastructure and funding left with the
colonial presence.
Particularly in Nigeria, formal education was seen as a policy making
tool, as women's formal education has been linked to having effects on
"population growth, health, nutrition, fertility, infant mortality, and
changes in women's productivity and earnings."
Researchers have cited some disadvantages however to this reliance on
women's formal education. One, there is concern for women being
alienated from their indigenous cultures and not receiving the education
in values that were typically received through pre-colonial indigenous
educational systems.
In addition, there is an increasing body of literature that suggests
how the formal education institutions channel women into particular
lower-earning job fields such as the humanities, while guiding women
away from more technical jobs with higher wages.
In regards to academic achievement, according to the FAWE
Conference girls across the Sub-Saharan region reported lower scores in
Math and Science subjects. The tendency for girls to be pushed into clerical positions upon finishing school is also a widely researched and held belief.
Despite this, formal education offers many benefits recognized
internationally. The Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women has
released publications citing numerous ways through which women's
education in Africa is beneficial to society as a whole. These entail an
increase in family health, in higher wage jobs available to women, an
improvement in quality standards of childhood development, and a greater
inclusion of women in decisions making that can impact a nation in
environmental, political, social and economic ways.
Despite there being a drop in participation of women in education in
the majority of countries in West Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, rates
of women education have been steadily climbing since then. However,
there is still much statistical gender disparity as according to UNESCO
statistics on women's enrollment and graduation rates.
Due to handicapes made for the afghan women and girls for getting
education by Taliban government, United nations dedicated 2023 World
education day to the afghan girls and women.
Gender disparities
One
of the primary ways in which there are gender disparities in education
in West Africa are in the ratios of male to female participation: 43.6%
of men have completed primary education as opposed to 35.4% of women,
6.0% of men have completed secondary education as opposed to 3.3% of
women, and 0.7% of men have completed tertiary education as opposed to
0.2% of women.
Some of the reasons for poor enrollment and participation is the "male
breadwinner" ideal that prioritizes educating boys over girls and
limited funds available to families for education. In addition, in West
Africa women are seen as the primary providers of unpaid care work.
This offers competing demands on the time of girls and oftentimes their
families will prioritize girls' spending time taking care of siblings
or doing domestic labor.
In addition, a leading cause of gender disparities in education are
gender disparities in the labor market, which lead to gendered ideas of
women's role in a society.
In addition to this, some gender disparities are caused by
teacher's attitudes towards students in the classroom according to the
students' gender.
There are some preconceived notions that boys are more intelligent and
harder working than girls in some West African countries. In particular
in Guinea,
surveys have been taken by researchers suggesting that school teachers,
particularly in rural schools, believe that boys learn lessons better,
have more ambition, are smarter, and work harder, while girls make less
effort, rarely give good responses to questions, and use poor French
expression.
In addition in both urban and rural schools analyzed, girls were
expected to do the manual labor to keep the schools clean while this
expectation was not held for the boys.
Gender disparities in higher education persist as well, with
women accounting for a little over 20% of university level enrollment in
all of Sub-Saharan Africa, and countries in West Africa such as Niger
and Ghana reporting rates of 15% and 21%, respectively. This is considered a contributing factor to why there are so few women in higher-level management and administrative jobs. In Ghana in 1990, women made up less than 1% of managers in the labor market, but with an average annual growth rate of 3.2%.
Researchers hope that improving primary education attainment and
accomplishment will lead to more attainment and accomplishment in the
tertiary educational level and in the labor market.
Gender equality in African education
In
the past few decades, African countries have attached great importance
to the role of education in the process of nation-state construction and
development. Therefore, education has been placed on the policy
priorities, and the rapid expansion of the number of educational
institutions at all levels has greatly increased women's educational
opportunities. In particular, after the World Conference on Education
for All, women's education received special attention in Africa and
achieved rapid development.
Progress
Taking
Sub-Saharan Africa as an example: in early 1960, the gross enrollment
rate of girls in primary education, secondary education and higher
education was 25%, 1% and 0.1%, respectively. By 2006, the figures were
89%, 28% and 4%, respectively.
While the enrollment rate of women at all levels is increasing,
the gender parity index is also improving. In sub-Saharan Africa, the
gender parity index for primary school enrollment in 1980, 1990, 2000
and 2006 was 0.77, 0.81, 0.89, and 0.92, respectively. In some
countries, women's gross enrollment ratios even exceed men's gross
enrollment rates, such as the Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, and Zambia. The
gender parity index for secondary and higher education also tends to
increase.
In addition to the enrollment rate and gender parity index, other
indicators, such as repetition rates, dropout rates, graduation rates,
etc., also reflect the progress of women's education in Africa. In 1999,
the repetition rate of female primary education in Sub-Saharan African
countries was 17.7%, and in 2006 it fell to 13.3%. At the same time, the
increase in female enrollment rates has also led to a growing number of
female teachers in Africa.
Challenge
In
recent decades, female education in Africa has made great (though
uneven) progress. On the one hand, the level of development of women's
education between countries and countries in this region is still
significantly different due to differences in geographical location,
social class, language and ethnicity. On the other hand, compared with
the rest of the world, Africa, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, still
lags behind in the field of women's education.
Educational interventions in conflict-affected regions must adopt a
more holistic and culturally sensitive approach to reshape gender norms
and foster sustainable peace-building efforts.
Compared with men, women in most African countries have been
disadvantaged in education, and the higher the level of education, the
more unfavorable the situation. One of the most important reasons for
this "vertical separation" is that girls' academic performance is worse
than that of boys, and the percentage of students who can graduate and
pass the exam is low. At the same time, in the diversion of secondary
education and higher education, there is also a "level separation" of
gender, which means that boys and girls are concentrated in certain
classes and majors, so that these courses become male-dominated subjects
or female-dominated subjects. For example, in the fields of education,
humanities, and art, the proportion of girls generally far exceeds that
of boys. Science, engineering, and architecture are dominated by boys.
Obstacles
There
are gender differences in education in Africa, and the factors that
lead to these differences are manifold. The factors that hinder the
education of gender equality can be roughly divided into economic
factors, school-related factors, and social and cultural factors.
Economic
Family
economic status is an important factor in determining whether a parent
is capable of withstanding the direct and indirect costs of a child's
education. Direct costs include tuition, school uniform fees,
transportation fees and other material fees like textbooks. In Kenya,
47% of the rural population and 27% of the urban population live below
the poverty line, yet they have to bear nearly 60% of the cost of
primary education. This forces them to selectively educate their
children. For poor families, girls are the most direct victims when
education costs are unaffordable. In a survey in the mid-1990s, 58% of
respondents let their daughters to drop out, while only 27% of
respondents chose sons.
Compared with boys, the opportunity cost
of girls to go to school is higher, because they bear multiple roles
such as family workers and mothers' assistants, and they have to bear
more labor than men. For example, in a province of Zambia, girls spend
four times as much time on direct productive labor as boys. Therefore,
girls' late schooling, absenteeism and dropouts are closely related to
labor.
School-related
The
location of the school has a direct impact on the type of education
that women receive, the quality of education, and the time of education.
Many parents are unwilling to let young children go to school far away
from home, and the distance between the school and the home is very
common in rural Africa. Insufficient infrastructure such as school
teaching, health, and dormitory can also prevent women from entering
school. At the same time, the curriculum and related teachers, syllabus,
textbooks and teaching methods lack gender awareness, or exist gender
bias, which has far more adverse effects for girls than boys. In many
African countries, it is still to strengthen the society's perception of
women's family life, and to hide the prejudice that women's
intelligence is not as good as men's. In such a learning environment,
women's learning attitudes are often negative, and they cannot fully
exert their abilities. In the secondary and higher education stages,
women are usually assigned to learn courses that are more feminine, such
as home economics, craft classes or biology (biological is considered
to be related to women's traditional occupations, such as nursing).
In addition, various forms of sexual violence and sexual
harassment in schools, or concerns about sexual violence and sexual
harassment, are silent barriers to girls' enrollment. These behaviors
not only affect the school's academic performance, but also cause
pregnancy, early marriage and so on. At the same time, in many
countries, teenage pregnancy almost interrupted girls' school education.
Social
Africa's
deep-rooted attitude towards women may be traced back to the
patriarchal system that continued in African native culture and colonial
experience. Traditionally, women's reproductive and family roles are of
great value. Adolescent African girls feel this pressure strongly
because she either assists her mother or other female relatives to
complete their home tasks or achieves a transition to an adult role such
as a wife or mother at this time. From that age, some girls who are
still in elementary school are at risk of interrupting their studies.
The traditional concept of marriage in Africa regards investment in
women's education as a waste, that is, all proceeds flow to another
family. Therefore, it is often difficult for women to get care from
their father and thus lose many educational opportunities.
Many tribes in different parts of the world, do not advocate
women education. Their cultural values are violated in case of
disobeyance of their ancestors.
Policy interventions
Cost-related
Effectively
promote universal, free and compulsory basic education, reduce or
eliminate the direct cost of basic education, so that primary education
can be more affordable. For example, in 2001, Tanzania implemented free
primary education, resulting in a rapid increase in the gross enrollment
rate of women's primary education from 61.6% to 88.8%.
Schools
Schools
create a safe and fair learning environment and institutional culture
that is conducive to women. Gender considerations will be taken into
account in the supply and allocation of resources to meet women's
specific educational needs. More important is to strengthen gender
awareness education for all teachers and educators.
Governments
The
government plays an important role in advancing gender equality in
education. One of its roles is to create a good environment through laws
and policies to promote women's education to achieve gender equality.
Beyond the law, the government must also set up a clear framework. For
example, in Ethiopia, the government clearly stipulates that women and
men have the same opportunity to accept the same curriculum, and are
free to choose a profession to ensure that women have the same
employment opportunities as men.
Modern social reform for Afghan women began when Queen Soraya,
wife of King Amanullah, made rapid reforms to improve women's lives and
their position in the family, marriage, education and professional
life. She founded the first women's magazine (Irshad-e Naswan, 1922), the first women's organization (Anjuman-i Himayat-i-Niswan),
the first school for girls (Masturat School in 1920), the first theatre
for women in Paghman and the first hospital for women (the Masturat
Hospital in 1924).
In 1928, Amanullah sent fifteen female graduates of the Masturat
middle school, daughters of the royal family and government officials,
to study in Turkey.
Soraya Tarzi was the only woman to appear on the list of rulers in
Afghanistan, and was credited with having been one of the first and most
powerful Afghan and Muslim female activists. However, Queen Soraya,
along with her husband's, advocacy of social reforms for women led to a
protest and contributed to the ultimate demise of her and her husband's
reign in 1929. King Amanullah Khan's
deposition caused a severe backlash, the girls 'schools were closed,
the female students who had been allowed to study in Turkey was recalled
to Afghanistan and forced to put on the veil and enter purdah again, and polygamy for men was reintroduced.
Successors Mohammed Nadir Shah and Mohammed Zahir Shah acted more cautiously, but nevertheless worked for the moderate and steady improvement of women's rights Women were allowed to take classes at the Masturat Women's Hospital in Kabul in 1931, and some girls' schools were reopened; the first High School for girls was officially called a 'Nursing School' to prevent any opposition to it.
After the Second World War
modernization reforms were seen as necessary by the government, which
resulted in the resurrection of a state women's movement. In 1946 the
government-supported Women's Welfare Association (WWA) was founded with Queen Humaira Begum as patron, giving school classes for girls and vocational classes to women, and from 1950 women students were accepted at the Kabul University.
The taliban banned women from education in 1996. When the Taliban was
removed from power in 2001, women were again allowed to study.
After taking control of the country in 2021, the Taliban
gradually banned education for girls and women above the 6th grade.
Women were also prohibited from working as teachers and in other
professions, creating problems for girls' elementary education and
leading to a risky underground network of girls' schools.
Along with the custom of footbinding
among Chinese women that lasted through the end of the 19th century, it
was recognized that a woman's virtue lay with her lack of knowledge. As a result, female education was not considered to be worthy of attention.
With the arrival of numerous Christian missionaries from Britain and
the U.S. to China in the 19th century and some of them being involved in
the starting of schools for women, female education started to receive
some attention.
Due to the social custom that men and women should not be near
one another, the women of China were reluctant to be treated by male
doctors of Western medicine. This resulted in a tremendous need for
women in Western medicine in China. Thus, female medical missionary, Dr.
Mary H. Fulton (1854–1927),
was sent by the Foreign Missions Board of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) to found the first medical college for women in China. Known as
the Hackett Medical College for Women (夏葛女子醫學院),
this college was located in Guangzhou, China, and was enabled by a
large donation from Edward A.K. Hackett (1851–1916) of Indiana, United
States. The college was dedicated in 1902 and offered a four-year
curriculum. By 1915, there were more than 60 students, mostly in
residence. Most students became Christians, due to the influence of Dr.
Fulton. The college was officially recognized, with its diplomas marked
with the official stamp of the Guangdong provincial government. The
college was aimed at the spreading of Christianity and modern medicine
and the elevation of Chinese women's social status. The David Gregg
Hospital for Women and Children (also known as Yuji Hospital 柔濟醫院 was affiliated with this college. The graduates of this college included Lee Sun Chau (周理信, 1890–1979, alumna of (Belilios Public School) and WONG Yuen-hing (黃婉卿), both of whom graduated in the late 1910s and then practiced medicine in the hospitals in Guangdong province.
People's Republic (1949–present)
Between
the years 1931 and 1945, the percent of uneducated women was over 90%,
and most of the women who were educated had only completed the
elementary level. In the 1950s, after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the government started a civilization project.
It enabled large amounts of uneducated women to learn basic writing and
calculation. This project raised the proportion of educated women. It
was promoted not only in cities but also in rural area. Villages had
their own elementary schools. Instead of only taking care of children
and chores at home, middle-aged women had chances to learn writing and
reading in local schools.
In the 1980s, Chinese central government passed a new education
law, which required local governments to promote 9-year obligation
education nationwide.
The new education law guaranteed education rights until middle school.
Before the 1960s, female enrollment in elementary school was 20%. 20
years after publishing this education law, in the year 1995, this
percentage had increased to 98.2%. By 2003, the proportion of female who
dropped from middle school decreased to 2.49%.
According to the fifth national census in 2000, the average
education length of females is up to 7.4 years. This digit increases
from 7.0 years to 7.4 years in 3 years. However, the female education
duration is still 0.8 years less than male's duration. This gap in
higher-level of education is larger in rural areas. In the countryside,
parents tend to use their limited resources for sons because they
believe sons have greater abilities to bring more back and their
contributions to family in the future are more significant than
daughters. In an investigation, parents are 21.9% more likely to stop
financing girls' education if they come into financial problems and
family issues. Boys are provided with more opportunities for further
studying, especially after middle school. This difference became more
evident in the universities.
In the 21st century, university education is becoming more
prevalent. The total enrollment goes up. Compared to the year of 1977,
which is the first year when college entrance examination was recovered,
the admission rate increased from 4.8% to 74.86%.
Since the general admission has largely risen, more students got into
universities. Although women are assumed to own the same rights of
general education, they are forced to do better in the Chinese college
entrance examination (Gaokao)
than males. Girls need to achieve higher grades than male students in
order to get into the same level university. It is an invisible ceiling
for Chinese females, especially in the top universities. It is not a
public rule but a mainstream consensus among most of Chinese university
admission offices. According to a telephone interview with an officer,
who declined to give her name, at the Teaching Office at the China University of Political Science and Law, "female students must account for less than 15 percent of students because of the nature of their future career."
India
Vedic period
Most females were allowed to pursue education without significant constraints in the Vedic period.
Women's education, unlike in the subsequent periods was not neglected.
Female scholars were also present during this period. The educators of
this period had divided women into two groups – Brahmavadinis and
Sadyodvahas.
The former were life-long students of philosophy and theology.
Sadyodvahas used to continue their studies until they got married. There
were many women poets and philosophers, such as Apala, Ghosha,
Visvavara, Sulabha Maitreyi and Gargi.
British India
London Mission Bengali Girls' School, Calcutta (LMS, 1869, p.12)
The Church Missionary Society tasted greater success in South India.
The first boarding school for girls came up in Tirunelveli in 1821. By
1840 the Scottish Church Society constructed six schools with roll
strength of 200 Hindu girls. When it was mid-century, the missionaries
in Madras had included under its banner, 8,000 girls. Women's employment
and education was acknowledged in 1854 by the East Indian Company's
Programme: Wood's Despatch.
Slowly, after that, there was progress in female education, but it
initially tended to be focused on the primary school level and was
related to the richer sections of society. The overall literacy rate for
women increased from 0.2% in 1882 to 6% in 1947.
In western India, Jyotiba Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule became pioneers of female education when they started a school for girls in 1848 in Pune. In eastern India, apart from important contributions by eminent Indian social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune
was also a pioneer in promoting women's education in 19th-century
India. With participation of like-minded social reformers like Ramgopal
Ghosh, Raja Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee and Pandit Madan Mohan Tarkalankar,
he established Calcutta's (now Kolkata) first school for girls in 1849
called the secular Native Female School, which later came to be known as
Bethune School. In 1879, Bethune College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, was established which is the oldest women's college in Asia.
In 1878, the University of Calcutta
became one of the first Indian universities to admit female graduates
to its degree programmes, before any British universities would begin to
do the same. This point was later raised during the controversy
surrounding the 1883 Ilbert Bill, a proposed legislation which would allow Indian judges to judge European offenders. The Anglo-Indian community in India
largely opposed the bill, claiming that Indians (both male and female)
were largely uneducated and thus unsuited to judging European offenders
in court. Indian women who supported the bill responded by noting that
they were more educated as a whole then the Anglo-Indian women who
opposed the bill, pointing out that more women in India had gained academic degrees than those living in the United Kingdom.
After India attained independence in 1947, the University Education
Commission was created to recommend suggestions to improve the quality
of education. However, their report spoke against female education,
referring to it as: "Women's present education is entirely irrelevant to
the life they have to lead. It is not only a waste but often a definite
disability."
However, the fact that the female literacy rate was at 8.9%
post-Independence could not be ignored. Thus, in 1958, a national
committee on women's education was appointed by the government, and most
of its recommendations were accepted. The crux of its recommendations
were to bring female education on the same footing as offered for boys.
Soon afterwards, committees were created that talked about
equality between men and women in the field of education. For example,
one committee on differentiation of curriculum for boys and girls (1959)
recommended equality and a common curricula at various stages of their
learning. Further efforts were made to expand the education system, and
the Education Commission was set up in 1964, which largely talked about
female education, which recommended a national policy to be developed by
the government. This occurred in 1968, providing increased emphasis on
female education.
Current policies
Before
and after Independence, India has been taking active steps towards
women's status and education. The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act,
2001, has been a path breaking step towards the growth of education,
especially for females. According to this act, elementary education is a
fundamental right for children between the ages of 6 and 14. The
government has undertaken to provide this education free of cost and
make it compulsory for those in that age group. This undertaking is more
widely known as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).
Since then, the SSA has come up with many schemes for inclusive
as well as exclusive growth of Indian education as a whole, including
schemes to help foster the growth of female education.
The major schemes are the following:
Mahila Samakhya Program: This program was launched in 1988 as a
result of the New Education Policy (1968). It was created for the
empowerment of women from rural areas especially socially and
economically marginalized groups. When the SSA was formed, it initially
set up a committee to look into this programme, how it was working and
recommend new changes that could be made.
Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme (KGBV): This scheme was
launched in July, 2004, to provide education to girls at primary level.
It is primarily for the underprivileged and rural areas where literacy
level for females is very low. The schools that were set up have 100%
reservation: 75% for backward class and 25% for BPL (below Poverty line)
females.
National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level
(NPEGEL): This programme was launched in July 2003. It was an incentive
to reach out to the girls who the SSA was not able to reach through
other schemes. The SSA called out to the "hardest to reach girls". This
scheme has covered 24 states in India. Under the NPEGEL, "model schools"
have been set up to provide better opportunities to girls.
One notable success came in 2013, when the first two girls ever
scored in the top 10 ranks of the entrance exam to the Indian Institutes
of Technology (IITs). Sibbala Leena Madhuri ranked eighth, and Aditi Laddha ranked sixth.
In addition, the status and literacy rates between West Bengal
and Mizoram were found to be profound; a study compared the two states
as they took on politically different approaches to helping empower
women (Ghosh, Chakravarti, & Mansi, 2015). In West Bengal, literacy
rates were found to be low even after fulfilling the 73rd amendment from
1992. The amendment established affirmative action by allotting 33% of
seats at panchayats, or local self-governments, to women. Mizoram chose
not to partake in the 73rd Amendment but has seen greater literacy
rates, it is second highest in the country, and also has a better sex
ratio. It was thus found that affirmative actions steps alone were not
enough. Women also need to be given the opportunity to develop through
formal education to be empowered to serve and profit from holding these
public leadership roles.
Raising awareness
The Canadian start-up Decode Global has developed the mobile game Get Water!, a game for social change focusing on the water scarcity in India
and the effect it has on girls' education, especially in slums and
rural areas. In areas with no ready access to water, girls are often
pulled out of school to collect water for their families. Another step in this direction has been Shakti program started by Anandmurti Gurumaa [pl] where girls are trained in entrepreneurial skills for financial independence.
Since the 1979 revolution, Iran was under control of Islamic rules, the progress of female education was affected by Islamic ecclesiocracy. Women are forced to wear veiling
and are prevented from going to the same school as male students.
Female students have to learn different versions of textbooks, which are
special editions only for female students. Unmarried women are
ineligible for financial aid if they attempt to study abroad. Throughout
the past 30 years, the issue of female education has been constantly
under debate.
Iranian women do have desires and abilities to pursue further
education. An Iranian high school student can earn a diploma after
studying for three years. If students aim to enter colleges, they will
stay in the high schools for the fourth year study, which has very
intense study. According to researches, 42% of female students choose to
have fourth year in the high school but only 28% of male students
choose to study in order to enter university. Moreover, women have a
much higher probability than men to pass college entrance exams. Islamic
female are in need of achieving higher education and truth proved that
their abilities are enough for getting higher education. The education
opportunities for female need more national attention and less
regulations.
During 1978 and 1979, the proportion of women who participated in
universities as students or faculties was rather low. 31% of students
admitted to universities were women. For faculty gender composition,
there are 14% female. This situation has changed with time passing by.
University enrollment was decreased under the influence of Iranian Cultural Revolution.
The general enrollment population declined during that time. After the
cultural revolution, the amount of enrollment was going up. The increase
in the number of university students is accompanied with an increase in
female rate.
Islamic higher education contains five levels: associate,
bachelor's, master's, professional doctorate and specialized doctorate.
Before the revolution, the gender gap is obvious in master level and
specialized doctorate, which are only 20% and 27%. It has changed after
30 years. In 2007, the female percent in master's degree rose up to 43%
and for specialized doctorate degree, this data rose up to 33%.
Female rate has not only increased in the students but also in
faculty. Twenty years ago, only 6% of all professors and 8% of all
associated professors were women. Now 8% of all professors and 17% of
all associated professors are female.
Literacy programs
While
formal education is prevalent amongst Iranian women, non-formal
educational intuitions are an option as well. Non-formal education in
the Islamic Republic of Iran originated from the Literary Movement
Organization (LMO), which aspired to decrease illiteracy rates in the
country. Established in 1984, LMO's tremendous efforts rectified the Pahlavi
regime's neglect in regards to educating children and populations in
rural areas. In the late 1980s, LMO created adult literacy programs,
vocational-technical schools, and religious institutions to combat high
illiteracy rates. Adult literacy programs teach introductory reading,
writing, and math in two cycles. While reading, writing, dictation, and
arithmetic are introduced in the first cycle, the second cycle delves
into Islamic studies, experimental and social sciences, and the Persian
language. Although these educational organizations are gender inclusive,
they mainly cater to women; in fact, 71% of enrollees are women between
the ages of 15 and 45. Throughout the 1990s, two-thirds of enrollees in
literacy programs were women, which directly led to a dramatic rise
(20%) in female literacy rates in Iran from 1987 to 1997.
Religious schools
Religious
schools are another educational route for Iranian women. Their
popularity is illustrated by the rise in the institution of "female
seminaries" as of 2010. In 1984, Ayatollah Khomeini, former supreme
leader of Iran, called for the creation of Jami'at al-Zahra,
an alliance of smaller religious schools. This led to the creation of
the first female seminary in Iran. These institutions offer the
opportunity to earn anything from high school diplomas to doctoral
degrees. The acceptance rate for women into these religious institutions
was 28% in 2010 (7,000 accepted out of 25,000 applicants).
Other educational routes
Newlyweds
(women specifically) are educated on family planning, safe sex, and
birth control in population control programs. In addition, the
government has established rural health houses managed by local health
workers. These health professionals travel to different areas in order
to impart information about women's health and birth control.
Saudi Arabia
Women in Saudi Arabia play an important role, and Women have a higher graduation rate from college than males do in 2023.
Women receive free, widespread access to K-12, undergraduate, and
graduate Education, including full-board scholarships to over 512
universities globally.
In 1955, Queen (Princess at the time) Effat, King Faisal's Wife,
of Saudi Arabia established "Dar Al Hanan", the first school for girls
in the country. In 1959, King Saud addressed the nation, started a
public Girl Education program. In 1960, "Kuliyat Al Banat" (The girl college) was launched, which was the first girl form of higher education in Saudi Arabia. By 1961 there were 12 elementary schools for girls and by 1965 there were 160. By 1970, there 357 and by 1975 there were 963, and 1980 there were 1,810. By 1981, the number of girls enrolled in public schools almost equaled the number of boys.
In 2005, the Saudi government launched King Abdullah Scholarship Program
(KASP), with over half of the scholarship beneficiaries being women. In
2015, 44,000 women had graduated from top universities in the US, East
Asia, Europe, and more.
The scholarship provided full-board scholarships for women including a
year-round ticket, monthly stipend, full tuition coverage, free private
tutoring, and even a monthly stipend and yearly ticket for a male family
relative to travel with all the women students.
Women in Islam played an important role in the foundations of many educational institutions, such as Fatima al-Fihri's founding of the mosque of Al Karaouine,
from which in later centuries developed what some consider the oldest
existing, continually operating educational institution in the world
according to UNESCO and Guinness World Records, in 859. This continued through to the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th and 13th centuries, when 160 mosques (places of worship) and madrasas (places of education) were established in Damascus, 26 of which were funded by women through the Waqf (charitable trust or trust law) system. Half of all the royal patrons for these institutions were also women.
According to the Sunni scholar Ibn Asakir, in the 12th century, there were opportunities for female education in the mediaeval Islamic world. Asakir wrote that women should study, earn ijazahs (academic degrees), and qualify as scholars
and teachers. This was especially the case for learned and scholarly
families, who wanted to ensure the highest possible education for both
their sons and daughters. Ibn Asakir himself had studied under 80 different female teachers in his time. According to a hadith collected in the Saḥih of al-Bukhārī, the women of Medina who aided Muhammad were notable for not letting social mores restrain their education in religious knowledge.
Further, In the 15th century, al-Sakhawi dedicated an entire volume of
his biographical dictionary to female scholars, documenting information
on 1,075 of them.
"How splendid were the women of the anṣār; shame did not prevent them from becoming learned [yatafaqqahna] in the faith."
While it was unusual for females to enroll as students in formal classes,
it was common for women to attend informal lectures and study sessions
at mosques, madrasas, and other public places. While there were no legal
restrictions on female education, some men, such as Muhammad ibn al-Hajj
(d. 1336), did not approve of this practice and were appalled at the
behavior of some women who informally audited lectures in his time.
While women accounted for no more than one percent of Islamic
scholars prior to the 12th century, there was a large increase of female
scholars after this. In the 15th century, al-Sakhawi devoted an entire volume of his 12-volume biographical dictionary al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʻ to female scholars, giving information on 1,075 of them. More recently, the scholar Mohammad Akram Nadwi, currently a researcher from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, has written 40 volumes on the muḥaddithāt (the women scholars of ḥadīth), ( a short introduction published named Al-Muhaddithat) and found at least 8,000 of them.
Europe
Ancient period
Portrait emphasizing the female subject's literacy, from Pompeii, mid-1st century AD
In ancient Rome, upper class
women seem to have been well-educated, some highly so, and were
sometimes praised by male historians of the time for their learning and
cultivation. Cornelia Metella, for instance, was distinguished for her knowledge of geometry, literature, music, and philosophy. In the wall paintings of Pompeii, women are more likely than men to be pictured with writing implements. Some women had sufficient knowledge of Roman law and oratorical training to conduct court cases on their own behalf, or on behalf of others. Among occupations that required education, women could be scribes and secretaries, calligraphers, and artists.
Some and perhaps many Roman girls went to a ludus. Boys and girls were educated either together or with similar methods and curriculum. One passage in Livy's history assumes that the daughter of a centurion would be in school; the social rank of a centurion was typically equivalent to modern perceptions of the "middle class". Girls as well as boys participated in public religious festivals, and sang advanced choral compositions that would require formal musical training.
Medieval period
Page
from an illuminated manuscript from the late 10th century. The three
nuns in front are all holding books, and the middle one appears to be
teaching, gesturing to make a point.
Medieval education for females was typically tied to a convent.
Research has uncovered that several early women educators were in charge
of schools for girls:
St. Ita of Ireland—died
570 AD. Founder and teacher of a co-ed school for girls and boys at her
monastery of Cell Ide. Several important saints studied under her,
including St. Brendan the Navigator.
Caesaria the Younger—died 550 AD. Successor to the sister of St. Caesarius
and abbess of the convent he founded for her nuns, Caesaria the Younger
continued the teaching of over a hundred women at the convent and aided
in the copying and preservation of books.
St. Hilda of Whitby—died
680 AD. Founder of the co-ed monastery of Whitby (men and women lived
in separate houses), she established a center of education in her
monastery similar to what was founded by the Frankish nuns. According to
the Venerable Bede, "Her prudence was so great, that not only meaner
men in their need, but sometimes even kings and princes, sought and
received her counsel."
St. Bertilla—died c. 700 AD. Queen Bathild
requested her services for the convent she had founded at Chelle. Her
pupils founded convents in other parts of western Europe, including
Saxony.
St. Leoba—died 782 AD. St. Boniface requested her presence on his mission to the Germans and while there she founded an influential convent and school.
St. Bede the Venerable reports that noble women were often sent to these schools for girls even if they did not intend to pursue the religious life, and St. Aldhelm praised their curriculum for including grammar, poetry, and scriptural study.
The biography of Sts. Herlinda and Renilda also demonstrates that women
in these convent schools could be trained in art and music.
During his reign, Emperor Charlemagne had his wife and daughters educated in the liberal arts at the Palace Academy of Aachen,
for which he is praised in the Vita Karolini Magni. There is evidence
that other nobles had their daughters educated at the Palace Academy as
well. In line with this, authors such as Vincent of Beauvais
indicate that the daughters of the nobility were widely given to
education so that they could satisfy the expectations of their future
social positions.
During the late Middle Ages in England, a girl could receive an
education in the home, in domestic service, in a classroom hosted in a
royal or aristocratic household, or in a convent. There is some evidence
of informal elementary schools in late medieval towns, where girls may
have received some schooling from parish priests or clerks. Near the end
of the Middle Ages, references to women as schoolteachers appear in
some French and English records. The instruction of girls was usually
oral, although instructors sometimes read texts aloud to girls until
they could read on their own. Families with the status and financial
means could send daughters to nunneries for education outside the home.
There, they could encounter a wide range of reading material, including
spiritual treatises, theological studies, lives of the fathers,
histories, and other books.
Early modern period
In 1237, Bettisia Gozzadini earned a law degree at the University of Bologna,
becoming the first woman to graduate university. In 1239 she taught
there, becoming first woman believed to teach at a university.
In early modern Europe, the question of female education had become a commonplace one, in other words a literary topos for discussion. Around 1405 Leonardo Bruni wrote De studies et letteris, addressed to Baptista di Montefeltro, the daughter of Antonio II da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino; it commends the study of Latin, but warns against arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and rhetoric. In discussing the classical scholar Isotta Nogarola, however, Lisa Jardine notes that (in the middle of the 15th century), "'Cultivation' is in order for a noblewoman; formal competence is positively unbecoming." Christine de Pisan's Livre des Trois Vertus
is contemporary with Bruni's book, and "sets down the things which a
lady or baroness living on her estates ought to be able to do."
In his 1516 book Utopia, Thomas More advocated for women to have the right to education.
Erasmus wrote at length about education in De pueris instituendis (1529, written two decades before); not mostly concerned with female education, in this work he does mention with approbation the trouble Thomas More took with teaching his whole family. Catherine of Aragon
"had been born and reared in one of the most brilliant and enlightened
of European courts, where the cultural equality of men and women was
normal". By her influence, she made education for English women both popular and fashionable. In 1523, Juan Luis Vives, a follower of Erasmus, wrote in Latin his De institutione feminae Christianae. This work was commissioned by Catherine, who had charge of the education of her daughter for the future Queen Mary I of England; in translation it appeared as Education of a Christian Woman. It is in line with traditional didactic literature, taking a strongly religious direction. It also placed a strong emphasis on Latin literature. Also Comenius was an advocate of formal education for women.
In fact his emphasis was on a type of universal education making no
distinction between humans; with an important component allowed to
parental input, he advocated in his Pampaedia schooling rather than other forms of tutoring, for all.
The Reformation prompted the establishment of compulsory education for boys and girls. Most important was Martin Luther's
text 'An die Ratsherren aller Städte deutschen Landes' (1524), with the
call for establishing schools for both girls and boys. Especially the Protestant South-West of the Holy Roman Empire, with cities like Strassburg,
became pioneers in educational questions. Under the influence of
Strasbourg in 1592, the German Duchy Pfalz-Zweibrücken became the first
territory of the world with compulsory education for girls and boys.
Elizabeth I of England had a strong humanist education, and was praised by her tutor Roger Ascham.[169] She fits the pattern of education for leadership, rather than for the generality of women. When Johannes Sturm
published Latin correspondence with Ascham centred on the achievements
in humanist study of Elizabeth and other high-ranking English persons,
in Konrad Heresbach's De laudibus Graecarum literarum oratio (1551), the emphasis was on the nobility of those tackling the classics, rather than gender.
The historian, Hannah Lawrance (1795–1875), played an important role in nineteenth-century public debate about women's education. Like Catharine Macaulay
and Mary Wollstonecraft, she argued that virtue had no sex and she
promoted the broad education of women in order to increase their
opportunities for employment. But unlike her bluestocking predecessors, she derived her argument from a scholarly reappraisal of women's history.
Laura Bassi, an Italian woman, earned a Ph.D. degree at the University of Bologna in Italy in 1732, and taught physics at the same university.
She was the first recorded woman to have a doctorate in science.
Working at the University of Bologna, she was also the first salaried
woman teacher in a university and at one time she was the highest paid
employee. She was also the first woman member of any scientific
establishment, when she was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in 1732.
Much education was channeled through religious establishments.
Not all of these educated women only for marriage and motherhood; for
example, Quaker views on women had allowed much equality from the foundation of the denomination in the mid-17th century. The abolitionistWilliam Allen and his wife Grizell Hoare set up the Newington Academy for Girls in 1824, teaching an unusually wide range of subjects from languages to sciences.
Bosnian Muslim and Christian women learning to read and write in 1948
Actual progress in institutional terms, for secular education of
women, began in the West in the 19th century, with the founding of
colleges offering single-sex education to young women. These appeared in
the middle of the century. The Princess: A Medley, a narrative poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is a satire of women's education, still a controversial subject in 1848, when Queen's College first opened in London. Emily Davies campaigned for women's education in the 1860s, and founded Girton College in 1869, as did Anne Clough found Newnham College in 1875. Progress was gradual, and often depended on individual efforts—for example, those of Frances Lupton, which led to the founding of the Leeds Girls' High School in 1876. W. S. Gilbert parodied Tennyson's poem and treated the themes of women's higher education and feminism in general with The Princess in 1870 and Princess Ida in 1883.
Once women began to graduate from institutions of higher
education, there steadily developed also a stronger academic stream of
schooling, and the teacher training
of women in larger numbers, principally to provide primary education.
Women's access to traditionally all-male institutions took several
generations to become complete.
Educational reform
Mary Lyon (1797–1849) founded the first woman's college in the United States.
The interrelated themes of barriers to education and employment
continued to form the backbone of feminist thought in the 19th century,
as described, for instance, by Harriet Martineau in her 1859 article "Female Industry" in the Edinburgh Journal. Despite the changes in the economy, the position of women in society had not greatly improved and, unlike Frances Power Cobbe, Martineau did not support the emerging call for the vote for practical reasons.
Slowly, the efforts of women like Emily Davies and the Langham group (under Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon) started to make inroads. Queen's College (1848) and Bedford College
(1849) in London started to offer some education to women, and by 1862
Davies was establishing a committee to persuade the universities to
allow women to sit for the recently established (1858) Cambridge Local Examinations, with partial success (1865). A year later she published The Higher Education of Women. She and Bodichon founded the first higher educational institution for women, with five students, which became Girton College, Cambridge in 1873, followed by Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall
at Oxford in 1879. Bedford had started awarding degrees the previous
year. Despite these measurable advances, few could take advantage of
them and life for women students was very difficult.
As part of the continuing dialogue between British and American feminists, Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the U.S. to graduate in medicine (1849), lectured in Britain with Langham support. They also supported Elizabeth Garrett's
attempts to assail the walls of British medical education against
strong opposition; she eventually took her degree in France. Garrett's
successful campaign to run for office on the London School Board
in 1870 is another example of how a small band of determined women were
starting to reach positions of influence at the level of local
government and public bodies.
By country
Denmark
Girls
were included as pupils in the first attempt of a public elementary
school system in 1739, though this attempt was not fully realized until
1814. From the foundation of the J. Cl. Todes Døtreskole
in the 1780s, schools for secondary education for females were
established in the capital of Copenhagen, though female teachers were
only allowed to teach girls or very small boys. One of the first schools for females of any note was the Døtreskolen af 1791,
and in the 1840s, schools for girls spread outside the capital and a
net of secondary education girl schools was established in Denmark. The
first college for women, the teachers seminary Den højere Dannelsesanstalt for Damer, was opened in 1846. In 1875, women were given access to university education.
Finland
In
the late 18th and early 19th centuries, private schools for girls were
established in Finland; among the better known were those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin,
preferred by those who did not wish to send their daughters to schools
in Sweden. The private girls' schools were, however, criticized for
shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in girls' education
being included in the school reform of 1843. The following year, two
Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and
Helsinki: Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors.
This led to the establishment of a net of girls' schools of a similar
kind in Finland. At first these schools were reserved for girls from
upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the
baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865, a grammar
school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were
impeccable, whose company could not be considered detrimental to others,
and who were from "respectable" families could be in that school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin,
was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced
classes and college classes were included in many girls' schools to
prepare students for university (by means of dispensation). In 1872, the
demand that all students must be members of the Swedish-speaking upper
classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar
schools for girls in 1882.
France formally included girls in the state elementary education
school system in 1836, but girls and boys were only integrated in the
lower levels; the secondary education of girls was entrusted to girls'
schools managed by nuns or governesses, who lacked necessary
qualifications.
When women were formally allowed to attend university in France in
1861, for them to qualify was often difficult due to the poor quality of
their secondary education. When the problem of unqualified female
teachers in girls' secondary education was addressed by a state
teacher's seminary for women as well as state secondary education for
girls, both of these were still gender segregated. The French school system was not desegregated on the middle secondary education level until the 20th century.
Germany
Germany was a pioneer
in the education of girls. Beginning in the 17th century, schools for
girls were opened in both Catholic Southern Germany as well as
Protestant Northern Germany. In Catholic Germany, the Catholic Ursulines and Elisabeth sisters
established first elementary education schools for poor children and
orphans and eventually before 1750, also a type of secondary education
girls' schools for wealthy girls called "daughters institutes", which
were essentially finishing schools. In Protestant Germany, the great Pietist school innovator August Hermann Francke of Halle founded Gynaeceum, the first girls' school or 'Mädchenschule' in 1698.
The Gynaeceum was followed by many Pietist girls schools in Germany, notably the Magdalenenstift in Altenburg and Johann Julius Hecker's Royal Elisabeth School in Berlin in 1747.
In the 18th century, it became common with so called Töchterschule ('daughters' schools') in German cities, supported by the merchant class who wished for their daughters to be given elementary schooling, as well as girls' schools known as Mädchenpensionate, essentially finishing schools for upper class daughters.
In the early 19th century, girls' secondary schools known as höhere Töchterschule
('daughters' high schools') became common; in many German cities later
in the century, these schools were given government support, became
public and had their education adjusted to become equivalents of boys'
high schools.
It was not until 1908, when women were allowed to attend university; in
the 20th century, the public secondary education system was integrated.
Ireland
Religion and cultural traditions had an influence on education for both girls and boys in the education system.
Schools in Ireland taught more than academics.
They taught about social practices such as manners and conversation
skills. Other skills that could help create "proper" adults.
Therefore, most schools aimed their female education to help reinforce
women's values and proper education for the future mothers of the
generation while limiting their educational opportunities compared to
their male classmates.
By the 1830s in Ireland, there was an introduction of a national education system
to educate the classes who could not afford proper education.
Therefore, more schools were built to house incoming students of all
social classes.
Yet, according to superintendents, there was poor student attendance
amongst the children due to their chores, illness, bad weather, or the
lack of clothing. Most girls in Irish schools had multiple absences and were the majority of the statistic in school due to duties at home.
Most girls had to leave school early or be home after school to look after the house and their siblings. This would often be overlooked due to the impression that boys' education was more important than their female classmates. However, by 1892, school attendance was made mandatory for students.
Girls could attend a fee-paying school in Ireland from the ages of 7/8 to 17/18 years of age,
although, since education can be expensive, they most often put the
boys in school, with the impression that they would need it more.
By the second half of the 19th century, female students were
criticized for learning other skills, such as artistic skills like the
piano and painting. Although the education was often poor, some schools, such as the Protestant and Catholics schools, had the opportunity to teach more of the present-day academics, such as math.
Girls from urban families with parents who did not know how to
read or write, still were taught religion and skills of the family
trade.
Some families relied on private, in-home education through tutors
or siblings. This form of education was usually expensive, and
therefore, only middle to upper-classed families could afford it.
Russia
By the time of the Reforms of Peter the Great
in the 18th century, women's education in Russia was almost
non-existent, and even noblewomen were often illiterate. With the
exceptions of some smaller private schools in the Western European
foreign colony of St Petersburg, women's education in Russian started
when empress Catherine the Great opened the pioneering state girls' schools Smolny Institute in St Petersburg in 1764 and Novodevichii Institute in Moscow in 1765.
The quality of these schools were very high even for Western European
standards, and they became a role model for later girls' schools in
Russia. They were followed by both private girls' schools as well as by
state schools who allowed girls in the lower classes, and in 1792, there
were 302 state schools in European Russia with 17,178 pupils, 1,178 of
whom were girls.
The state schools however only allowed girls in the elementary
education classes, not on the secondary education level, and the
majority of the private girls' schools gave a shallow education of
accomplishments with focus on becoming a wife and mother or, if they
failed in marrying, a seamstress or governess.
In the 1850s the women's movement started in Russia, which were
firstly focused on charity for working-class women and greater access to
education for upper- and middle-class women, and they were successful
since male intellectuals agreed that there was a need for secondary
education for women, and that the existing girls' schools were shallow.
From 1857 public secondary education girls' schools, called
lyceum or girls' gymnasiums (as the equivalent to the state gymnasium's
for boys), were opened in Russia. The Russian school regulation for
state secondary girls' schools of 1860 stated that in contrast to state
secondary boys' school, which were to prepare students for university,
girls were foremost to be educated to become wives and mothers.
Since the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861, village folk schools
were established for the peasantry where boys and girls were given
elementary education together as children, but until the Russian Revolution the law mandated that secondary education was always to be gender-segregated in accordance with the school regulation of 1870.
Women were allowed to attend lectures at the university in 1861,
but were banned again when they attempted to enroll as students in 1863.
When this resulted in women studying in Western Europe (mainly
Switzerland), the Guerrier Courses opened in Moscow in 1872 and the Bestuzhev Courses
in St Petersburg in 1878: however they did not issue formal degrees,
and women were not allowed to attend university until 1905. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, men and women were given equal access to education on all levels.
Sweden
Around
1800, girls' middle-secondary schools begun to appear, and become more
common during the 19th century. By the mid-1970s, most of them had been
scrapped and replaced with coeducation.
By a law from the 1570s (1571 års kyrkoordning),
girls as well as boys were expected to be given elementary schooling.
The establishment for girls' schools was left to each city's own
authorities, and no school for girls were founded until the Rudbeckii flickskola
in 1632, and that school was to be an isolated example. However,
schools for boys did accept female students at the lowest lewels and
occasionally even at high levels: Ursula Agricola and Maria Jonae Palmgren were accepted at Visingsö Gymnasium in 1644 and 1645 respectively, and Aurora Liljenroth graduated from the same school in 1788.
During the 18th century, many girls' schools were established, referred to as Mamsellskola (Mamsell School) or Franskpension (French Pension). These schools could normally be classified as finishing schools,
with only a shallow education of polite conversation in French,
embroidery, piano playing and other accomplishments, and the purpose was
only to give the students a suitable minimum education to be a lady, a
wife and a mother.
In the first half of the 19th century, a growing discontent over
the shallow education of women eventually resulted in the finishing
schools being gradually replaced by girls' schools with a higher level
of academic secondary education, called "Higher Girl Schools", in the
mid-19th century. At the time of the introduction of the compulsory elementary school for both sexes in Sweden in 1842, only five schools in Sweden provided academic secondary education to females: the Societetsskolan (1786), Fruntimmersföreningens flickskola (1815) and Kjellbergska flickskolan (1833) in Gothenburg, Askersunds flickskola (1812) in Askersund, and Wallinska skolan (1831) in Stockholm.
During the second half of the 19th century, there were secondary education girl schools in most Swedish cities. All of these were private, with the exception of the women's collegeHögre lärarinneseminariet in Stockholm from 1861, and its adjacent girls' school Statens normalskola för flickor.[205] The Girls' School Committee of 1866
organized the regulation of girls' schools and female education in
Sweden: from 1870, some girls' schools were given the right to offer the
Gymnasium level to their students, and from 1874, those girls' schools
which met the demands were given governmental support and some were
given the right to administer the school leaving exam.
This was necessary to make it possible for women to enroll at the
universities, which had been opened to women in 1870, as female students
were not accepted in the same middle schools as male students.
Between 1904 and 1909, girls were integrated in state boys'
schools on the secondary levels, which made it possible for girls to
complete their elementary and middle level education in a state school
instead of having to go to an expensive private girls' school. Finally in 1927, all state secondary schools
for boys were integrated, and the private girls' schools started to be
transformed into co-educational schools, a process which was completed
by 1970.
Catholic tradition
In the Roman Catholic tradition, concern for female education has expressed itself from the days of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, which in the 200s AD had courses for both men and women. Later Church writers such as St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome all left letters of instruction for women in convents that they either founded or supported. In the Middle Ages, several religious institutes
were established with ministries addressing women's education. For
medieval examples of convent schools, which are one form of such
institutions, see the examples at the section on the medieval period. In the early modern period, this tradition was continued with the Ursulines (1535) and the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (1849).
Contemporary convent schools are usually not restricted to Catholic
pupils. Students in contemporary convent education may be boys
(particularly in India).
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