Education for women: whose values count?

This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on women's education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as ideological in nature, rather than a technical matter of tackling ‘drop out’ from women's literacy classes or getting more girls into school. From talking about ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘access’, we need to think more about what is being changed to what and whose values underlie specific educational approaches.