Feminism, Gender and Universities ─ Politics, Passion and Pedagogies

Feminism, Gender and Universities demonstrates the positive and robust impacts that feminism has had on higher education, through the eyes and in the words of the participants in changing political and social processes. Drawing on the a€?collective biographya€? of leading feminist scholars from around the world and current evidence relating to gender equality in education, this book employs methods including biographies, life histories, and narratives to show how the feminist project to transform womena€?s lives in the direction of gender and social equality became an educational and pedagogical one. Through careful attention to the ways in which feminism has transformed feminist academic womena€?s lives, the author explores the importance of education in changing socio-political contexts, raising questions about further changes that are necessary. Delving into the deeper and more a€?hiddena€? echelons of education, the book examines the contested nature of current managerial or business approaches to university and education, revealing these to be incompatible with feminist thought. A plea for more careful attention to education and the ways in which the processes of knowledge-making influence (and are influenced by) gender and sexual relations, Feminism, Gender and Universities will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in gender, pedagogy and modern academic life.

Miriam E. David is Professor Emerita of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She is the author of Personal and Political: Feminisms, Sociology and Family Lives; co-author of Get Real About Sex: The Politics and Practice of Sex Education and Degrees of Choice: Social Class, Race and Gender in Higher Education, the editor of Improving Learning by Widening Participation in Higher Education and co-editor of The Sociology of Higher Education: Reproduction, Transformation and Change in a Global Era, and Negotiating the Glass Ceiling: Senior Women in the Academic World.