Girls’ education: The power of policy discourse

Abstract

Girls’ education has been a focus of international development policy for several decades. The discursive framing of international organizations’ policy initiatives relating to girls’ education, however, limits the potential for discussing complex gender issues that affect the possibilities for gender equity. Because discourse shapes our understanding of reality, the emphases and omissions of policy language can affect our understanding of complex issues such as the challenges of girls’ education in international development. Using feminist critical policy discourse analysis, this study analyzes 300 policy documents, published between 1995 and 2008, that represent the ‘public face’ of 14 organizations active in the field of international development education. We examine three types of discursive arguments given in the documents for educating girls: justice arguments, utility arguments, and empowerment arguments. We show that the robustness of ‘gender’, and related concepts such as equity and equality as theoretical constructs, are limited, which is a factor constraining what can be understood as important in gender equity in education. Policy remains focused on girls and not gender (or boys), and on easily measurable indicators (counting boys and girls in school). This policy discourse does little to recognize that gender as a social process reproduces – or has the potential to challenge – social inequities.