Women's Access and Opportunity in Higher Education: toward the twenty‐first century

Abstract

Throughout Europe, North America, and some other countries of the world the years since 1960 have brought substantial increases in the numbers and percentages of women students in higher education. In some countries, women's participation had been important for a number of decades prior to 1960. In France, Finland, Sweden, and the United States, for example, women students made up rather large portions of their respective student bodies, subject to fluctuations during the world wars. In other countries, however, the increases are more recent and perhaps more remarkable for that. Indeed, in many countries it can be said that were it not for the increases in female participation, general enrolment growth might have decreased or stagnated. This effort on behalf of women has focused on breaking formal barriers to entry into higher education, and particularly into traditionally male professions, by challenging the discriminatory policies and practices of educational and training institutions. Changes in national laws and regulations and generally greater attention and support for women's concerns have been hallmarks of this effort. The result has been a dramatic increase in the number of women entering medicine, law, business, and academia. Today, this struggle for access continues. At the same time, a new phase has begun. Not only do greater numbers of women seek access to higher education and the professions, they want to move up as well. This struggle for expanded opportunity is what confronts many women who have already entered higher education, completed their training and begun their careers. The purpose of this discussion is to provide an overview of both access and opportunity issues for women in higher education. This overview will seek to present representative data and research examples that reveal the issues and concerns that span national boundaries. Systems of higher education vary greatly from country to country and even within countries. For example, the United States has over 3200 institutions, including two-year colleges, technical institutes, regional and multi-campus universities with an array of graduate and professional programmes. Yet all are within one system of higher education. Other countries have similar varieties of institutions in their systems and similar complexities of admission and completion requirements. This must be kept in mind in attempting to make even minimal comparisons across countries.