Academic and professional identities as gendered experiences in higher education: challenges and possibilities

Abstract

While duly recognizing the role that higher education institutions have played in the promotion of gender equality in teaching, learning and management of education and development processes, this paper aims to assess the extent to which these inroads have been constrained by their bigger and more powerful societal context. Using documented evidence from research and scholarship on gender equality in higher education, this paper argues that in the developing world the persistent gender inequalities in higher education institutions are a mirror image of the larger context at which level very little has been achieved to close the gender inequality gap in policies, legal systems, leadership and decision making structures, in capacity building efforts and attitudinal change. The key premise in this paper is that changes that are taking place in Higher education should be predicated on the ideological and practical commitments form all the sectors of societies that give these institutions context. Highlighted are the strong indications that most of the nations in this context still lag behind in appreciation of and subscription to some of the regional and international instruments and protocols that form a basis for concern and action about gender inequality as a form of social and economic injustice. Simply put, the larger context is neither convinced nor committed to this course. This makes central in this analysis, the ensuing expectation for higher education institutions to make significant influences in this regard.