Girls and women in the educational system: The curricular challenge

Abstract

This Viewpoint argues that, while efforts must continue to achieve universal primary and secondary education at the global level for both boys and girls, the concern with access and thus enrollment and completion parity has blinded many governments from seeing the crucial need to examine what is actually learned in school. Stronger concern with curriculum would bring a stronger focus on the formal knowledge conveyed in schools and on the ways in which this knowledge might (or might not) facilitate a substantial change in the social relations of gender.