Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Convener: Kathy Mumford, Australia

Curriculum Change and Gender Empowerment
Anne Rønning, Norwegian Federation of University Women

It is ten years since Women and the University Curriculum* was published by UNESCO. In the introduction Attiya Inayatullah wrote: “Education is (...) a principal means to empower women”. This paper will analyze the goals presented in this book and those set by the World Conference on Higher Education, assess to what extent these goals have been achieved and ask whether the questions posed are still equally relevant. Has the gender dimension been effectively included in higher education or are we experiencing a backlash? Has insufficient attention been paid to gender mainstreaming in practice? Increasing globalization and media and technological changes present new challenges to education. Has the curriculum kept pace with these changes? If we want gender equality and women s empowerment it is imperative that the curriculum reflects the society in which people live. This applies equally to primary and secondary education.

Literature is, I would maintain, a key source for increasing awareness of gender equality and achieving Millennium Goal 3. The second part of this paper will discuss how theories of postcolonialism, globalization/glocalization provide research methods that can be implemented in the classroom and lecture hall. Questions of identity and reader response are also central in this interpretation. This will be illustrated by examples from readings of canonical literature and contemporary texts.

* Women and the University Curriculum. Ed. Mary-Louise Kearney and Anne Holden Rønning. Paris and London: UNESCO Publishing/Jessica Kingsley, 1996.

Anne Holden Rønning is Emeritus Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Bergen, Norway. She has been a visiting scholar at Deakin University and the National Library of Australia, the University of Wellington (New Zealand) and Washington University (Seattle, USA) and the University of Austin(Texas, USA). She has published in the areas of postcolonial and women’s literature, women’s studies and education issues.