Elaine Unterhalter

University College London | UCL · Department of Education, Practice and Society

This article examines how the distinction between complicated and complex education systems contributes to our understanding of global governance and how “soft power” concerned with gender is used in international development organisations’ responses to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, the global goal for education. Four global governance appr...

Research on well-being and concern over the well-being of students and teachers has grown dramatically in recent years. Researchers and reformers in positive psychology and education, self-determination theory, social and emotional learning, liberal-democratic political and educational philosophy, and neo-Aristotelian theories of flourishing and ch...

The harmful effects of Covid 19 on children living in poverty have refocused attention on the complex nature of child poverty and the vexed question of its relationship to education. The paper examines a tension at the heart of much discussion of child poverty and education. On the one hand, education is often regarded as essential for children’s f...

In this article, we reflect on debates about the position of the university in contexts of widening intersectional inequalities, neonationalism, and questions regarding the capacity of the knowledge society to adequately address the range of vulnerabilities associated with the Anthropocene. We review a role we proposed for universities after the 20...

This article explores conceptualisations of the public good role of higher education and considers their application to higher education in African countries. The article starts by delineating a number of different ways in which higher education and the public good are linked, grouping these together as instrumental and intrinsic versions of the re...

The article contrasts two approaches to thinking about girls' education and international development. A position termed “what works” stresses girls' education as a techno-rationalist intervention to make development policy more efficient, but has little concern with gender equity or changing unjust global relationships. This position is contrasted...

This article considers how useful measurement and indicators are in developing insight into a problem as complex as gender injustice and education. It poses the question about what we ought to evaluate with regard to individuals, institutions, discourses and countries when we make assertions about gender inequality in education and how to address t...

In this article, we review the process of building relationships around education and international development at IOE (Institute of Education), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (University College London, UK). The analysis looks at how hierarchies linked to colonialism were inscribed in initial structures, and unevenly and disparately contes...

An edited collection of articles on the effects of COVID 19 on education

https://covidandsociety.com/https-covidandsociety-com-rapid-evidence-review-impact-pandemic-uk-higher-education-sector-students/

Presents the AGEE (Accountability for gender equality in education) Framework and discusses approaches to measuring gender equality in education

A rigorous literature review on gender aspects of education and non state actors commissioned for UNESCO GEM Report Gender Review

Education is central to the project of individual and collective identity formation, national development and international relations, and is crucial in moments of crisis. What should be the agenda of study and action for education in such times? Identities and Education engages with this crucial question, seeking to examine and problematise our co...

Given that tertiary education (TE) is a sector often associated with exclusion, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where only a small proportion of the population gain access, how well placed is this sector to support the implementation of the SDGs? This article extends our reflections from a recent rigorous review of literat...

Background paper commissioned for GEM Report Gender Review

The concept of intersectionality allows for an expanded understanding of many facets of gender inequality associated with education, and a more nuanced approach to thinking about inclusion in education systems that go beyond equalising the numbersof girls and boys enrolling or progressing. The approach signalled by intersectionality thus suggests w...

This policy forum shows how the policy challenges arising from COVID-19 can be understood by drawing on core concepts from the capability approach developed by Sen and others.

The article is an attempt to explore through the lens of my identification as a foreigner, a number of different themes around work in comparative education, particularly aspects of the question of method, and some reflections on the relationship with education and international development. The discussion begins with some reflection on internal or...

This is the updated and corrected version of the report uploaded last week

This research report summarises analysis made in the project Higher education, inequality and the public good: A study in four African countries. The study funded 2017-2019 by the ESRC/Newton/NRF funding partnership has focussed on Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and has brought together researchers from those four countries, together with c...

Report prepared for Global Partnership in Education (GPE) KIX discussion https://www.globalpartnership.org/sites/default/files/2019-07-kix-gender-final-english.pdf

In this chapter, Elaine Unterhalter considers four brief moments in the history of the concept of ‘empowerment’ and links these with the capability approach. To ‘empower’ in a pessimistic sense dates to the English civil war and was initially used to describe the illicit exercise of authority on behalf of powerful actors. In the twentieth century,...

The formulation of the SDG education targets was more inclusive than the processes linked with the MDGs. Key constituencies making representations through the Open Working Group and other consultative processes succeeded in formulating targets that stressed inclusion, quality and equality in all phases of education. However, the development of the...

Debates around quality versus quantity in education can generate controversy about how quality is measured. Many question the drive to delineate and quantify precisely what works, suggesting that much value either cannot be measured or is distorted by measurement. This book explores how we can understand measurement in areas of education policy, p...

Higher education has been the object of policy attention in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. It has been seen as key to unlocking the potential of the youth bulge, responding to the demands of a growing middle class and to transforming commodities-based economies into knowledge societies (World Bank 2009; Cloete, Maassen & Bailey 2015; Chuks, 20...

Household air pollution from burning solid fuels is responsible for an estimated 2.9 million premature deaths worldwide each year and 4.5% of global disability-adjusted life years, while cooking and fuel collection pose a considerable time burden, particularly for women and children. Cleaner burning biomass-fuelled cookstoves have the potential to...

This paper was commissioned by the Global Education Monitoring Report Gender Review as background information to assist in drafting the 2018 GEM Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments to gender equality in education. It has not been edited by the team. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) a...

This report synthesises findings from four scoping studies of policy, practice and evidence on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in Zambia, Togo, Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire carried out in 2016-2017.This work forms part of End Gender Violence in Schools (EGVS), an initiative led by UNICEF, with support from Global Partnership for Educatio...

School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) describes physical, sexual and psychological acts of violence in and around schools, underpinned by unequal access to resources and power, and inequitable norms and stereotypes. While there is increasing recognition of SRGBV as a major issue globally, rigorous reviews of literature have concluded that ev...

Les violences basées sur le genre en milieu scolaire (VBGMS) désignent les actes de violence physique, sexuelle et psychologique contre les garçons et les filles perpétrés au sein et aux abords des écoles, des communautés et des familles et fondés sur un accès inégal aux ressources et au pouvoir, ainsi que sur des normes et stéréotypes inéquitables...

The main objective of the study was to analyse responses to gender-based violence in and around schools in Côte d’Ivoire, in order to inform future planning of policy and practice initiatives. This report draws on the data gathered by the research team, UNICEF CO, national consultants and partners, and presents findings from a scoping study of poli...

Drawing on case-study research that examined initiatives which engaged with global aspirations to advance gender equality in schooling in Kenya and South Africa, this book looks at how global frameworks on gender, education and poverty are interpreted in local settings and the politics of implementation. It discusses the forms of global agreements...

This report presents findings from the scoping study of policy, practice and evidence on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in Togo, which took place in 2016. The study has been carried out as a collaboration between the government of Togo, UNICEF, and a team at the UCL Institute of Education (Jenny Parkes, Jo Heslop, Freya Johnson Ross,...

The article reviews the literature on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and policy on girls’ schooling in developing countries. It considers the ways in which aims around gender equality and women’s rights are positioned in policy texts concerned with girls’ education PPPs. The argument made is that these documents exemplify an oscillation, using...

This report presents findings from a scoping study of policy, practice and evidence on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in Zambia, which was carried out in 2016. The main objective of the study was to analyse responses to gender-based violence in and around schools in Zambia, in order to inform future planning of policy and practice ini...

The article argues teachers matter because of their potential to engage in critical reflection on values associated with connecting the local, the national and the global. Their practice can support those who are dislocated, and who have no place. Teachers matter because they can help us understand how we share humanity and aspirations across many...

The article argues teachers matter because of their potential to engage in critical reflection on values associated with connecting the local, the national and the global. Their practice can support those who are dislocated, and who have no place. Teachers matter because they can help us understand how we share humanity and aspirations across many...

This report provides a synthesised overview of the deliberations of the Project Workshop held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 22 to 24 May 2017 for the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Newton/National Research Foundation (NRF) funded project, Higher Education, Inequality and the Public Good in four African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nig...

This introductory article to the special issue of Comparative Education on measuring the unmeasurable in education considers measurement as reflecting facts and uncertainties. The notion of negative capability is used metaphorically to depict some limits of what is measurable, and portray aspects of the process of education, associated with uncerta...

A global policy discourse regarding gender, education, and girls’ schooling emerged around 1991, growing in scale and scope, shaping relationships of activists, governments, and transnational organizations. The chapter sets this trend in a historical context. Three overlapping phases of global policy engagement with gender, education, and girls’ sc...

171 articles (of 2525 publications identified) were reviewed to understand what approaches appear to be making a difference in addressing SRGBV. Some key findings are: Major evidence gaps exist in how to provide safe, inclusive and violence-free learning environments for girls and boys. Research has been skewed towards evaluations of short-term int...

Concept paper developed for workshop on Beyond Parity: Measuring Gender Equality in Education, London, September 18-19, 2015

Since 1995, considerable expertise has built up in measuring aspects of gender inequality and equality, and in researching these in education, particularly formal schooling. Existing international and national measures used for reporting on gender in formal schooling chart gender parity in school enrolment, attendance, progression, and learning out...

The paper reports on an investigation regarding how to measure gender equality in education. Dissatisfaction with the limited scope of existing measures, such as gender parity, prompted work on developing a gender equality index to present student teachers’ views, and highlight areas where PRESET and CPD teacher education courses were needed to sus...

Keynote address for Education International 7th World Congress, Women’s Caucus, Ottawa, July 21 2015