Interrogating gendered inequality in educational attainment in India

Abstract

The educational system in India is highly stratified across gender, caste, class, region and religion. However, gender remains the most pervasive axis of educational stratification and disparities in India despite recognition of large societal benefits accruing to women and several proactive constitutional/legal measures over last six decades. Most of the literature on gender inequality in education deals with literacy and access to elementary education and are descriptive/narrative in nature. Moreover, girls and women are often treated as a monolithic category overlooking their multiple locations teasing a simplistic framework to unravel gender inequality in education at various levels and underlying factors causing such inequalities. Drawing both from secondary data and field-based research in differently located sites in terms of developmental parameters in rural Bihar, this paper tries to capture gender disparity in a multi-dimensional and nuanced analytical framework locating it in a larger socio-economic context.