World Family Summit +6- Paris 2010

Panel III Theme

The role of the Family in achieving gender parity and equality in education

Elisabetta Donati, University of Turin, Italy

“Educate a Man, You educate a Person, educate a Woman, You Educate a Nation”

(African Proverb)

Key issues: Families play a big role in supporting girls’ education Families are not natural aggregations or private matters Families are social actors

Families are contexts where differences exist Families are central in promoting care and wellbeing but

families could create the conditions for maintaining

discriminations Families have to be supported by laws and policies

In times past…. Christine de Pizan wrote:

“If girls attended schools they could learn as well as boys did, and could be able to understand all the details of Arts and Sciences, exactly as male did”. La cité des dames, 1418

UNESCO main findings: Being a girl still remains a powerful cause

for exclusion: 60% of countries have not reached gender parity in primary and secondary education

gender equality in education is not only access but challenging gender ideologies in both education and society

The Global Education Digest (GED)

The Global Education Digest (GED)

Family role, not in one way only

Families work assigning resources and power in different ways in accordance with gender and generation roles and relationships, shaped by traditions as

well by social changes

Self reliance for women is not often a recognized right

Education for women as well as their labour market participation is related to

many social considerations: in many countries it is not still recognized as

an individual right and freedom

Unequal processes Social destinies of the children are still

strongly correlated to familial and educational contexts in which they are

born and in which they are growing up (P. Bourdieu). So, children inherit wealth and

poverty from their families if

social policies don’t aid in breaking these unequal processes

a very challenging task

TO

Gender Equality: the right to access

and participate in education, as well as

to benefit from gender sensitive educational environments, processes and achievements

From Gender Parity:

equal participationfor girls and boys

in education.

Gender roles and stereotypes are the main concern

Both in rich and poor countries, traditional stereotypes are the biggest challenge for gender equality in education

What boys and girls could and should do in their professional (and personal) lives is

still very much shaped by traditional concepts of gender roles

In my country (Italy)

Equal opportunities Committee have worked to give evidence to the ambivalence of educational models

ambivalence at school ambivalence at home

But brilliant outcomes:

Mum cooking …. dad napping…..

Mum caretaking…dad enjoying…

More women are in paid work… (Ocse findings in Gender Brief 2010)

But still many gender gaps prevail

women earn less than men

women spend more time on unpaid work than men

less leisure time for women

Findings:

Families are placed in a point of intersection between public matters and private life

Without equal opportunities policies, families can distribute what they have, their less or more economic resources and cultural templates

Only collective changes can provide genuine resolutions, in both rich and poor countries

Suggestion:

Schools and education for All could be a keystone to help

families to find out new solutions to the obstacles along their ways

and to help individuals to implement their aspirations

Unicef Learning: 1. Good quality schools help personal experiences to

develop into capabilities and talents

2. Only free and compulsory schools are schools for All 3. Schools are truly for All if learning enviroments are

safe

4. Education needs female positive-influential models

5. Gender-sensitive Data are necessary to measure

education equality

Women’s freedom is a severe test of the degrees of democracy in our countries……

From rights to capabilities:

Not assuring women the

capabilities for acting as individuals, as free citizens means

that we are committing an injustice. And this is no concern

only of families.