Education Research Gender, Education and Development - A Partially Annotated and Selective Bibliography

philosophical and economic analysis in respect of gender, and development policy.
From a variety of philosophical positions the 25 contributors proceed to provide
considerable support for the 'capabilities' approach pioneered by Amartya Sen, who is
in fact also a contributor. A sense of realism and practical consensus is promoted by the
decision of the editors to preface the various discourses with a major case study by
Martha Chen entitled: 'A Matter of Survival: Women's Right to Employment in India
and Bangladesh'. As the writer of the foreword (Lal Jayawardena) puts it: "The
problems of women in developing countries call urgently for new forms of analysis and
for an approach that moves beyond utilitarian economics to identify a number of
distinct components of a human being's quality of life, including life-expectancy,
maternal mortality, access to education, access to employment, and the meaningful
exercise of political rights. Even when a nation seems to be doing well in terms of GNP
per capita, its people may be doing poorly in one or more of these areas. This is
especially likely to be the case for women, who have been treated unequally in many
traditional societies, and who nowhere enjoy, on average, a 'quality of life' equal to that
of men, when this is measured by the complex standard recommended by the
'capabilities' approach."

The book is structured into four parts, the first being the aforementioned case study.
The second is focused on: 'Women's Equality: Methodology, Foundations' and includes
discussion of, for example; human capabilities, development elites, justice, pragmatism,
democracy and rationality, cultural complexity and moral interdependence. The third
has to do with: 'Women's Equality: Justice, Law and Reason', comprising contributions
on gender inequality and theories of justice; inequalities and cultural context; gender,
caste and law; emotions and women's capabilities. Finally, part four takes on 'Regional
Perspectives' with examples from China, Mexico, India and Nigeria. So the volume as a
whole contributes in a balanced way as across the major components of the developing
world and adds greatly to the ongoing work of the Quality of Life Project of which it is
a part.

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