Commonwealth Secretariat Women and the Teaching Profession: Exploring the Feminisation Debate

Product Description The debates on women and teaching have been wide ranging and, in some cases, contentious. They have included reviews of why the profession can become gender imbalanced in favour of women, the impacts of this on learning processes and student education, and the implications on womens overall empowerment within society and the economy. Most of the research to date has concentrated on developed countries, such as the UK, Australia and Canada, where women have been a significant majority in the teaching workforce for decades. This study looks at how the teacher feminisation debate applies in developing countries. Drawing on the experiences of Dominica, Lesotho, Samoa, Sri Lanka and India, it provides a strong analytical understanding of the role of female teachers in the expansion of education systems, and the surrounding gender equality issues. Co-published with UNESCO. Review an important contribution to scholarship on women and the teaching profession, and indeed to the wider field of gender and education. --Gender & Development, Volume 20, Issue 2, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2012.687230 About the Author Study prepared by Fatimah Kelleher. Country reports by Francis O. Severin, Matselane B. Khaahloe, Meera Samson, Anuradha De, Tepora Afamasaga-Wright and Upali M. Sedere.