New Directions in Gender, Education and Poverty

A Roundtable Discussion
24 June 2021, 11.30 – 12.30 (UK time)/ 16:00-17:00 (IST) 

Organised by Dr Srabani Maitra, Dr Sebastian Schwecke, Dr Saikat Maitra 

This roundtable was organised by the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, Max Weber Stiftung India Branch Office (MWS IBO), New Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) to engage with research on gender, education and poverty by both senior and early career academics. 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and adoption of the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), seek to incorporate and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental (UNESCO, 2017). Concomitant with this, is the emphasis on the critical role of equitable access to education (SDG4) for sustainable development and transformative change.  

Over the past decade, major progress has been made towards increasing access to education and school enrolment rates at all levels, particularly for girls. Nevertheless, some 750 million adults – two thirds of them women – remained illiterate in 2016 (United Nations, 2021) and about 260 million children were still out of school in 2018 — nearly one fifth of the global population in that age group (UNESCO, 2021). Poverty remains a significant constraint for women’s educational attainment. Moreover, how poverty impacts women’s education is complicated by multiple social and cultural contexts.  

This roundtable brought together researchers from the global South and the North to foreground new directions exploring the intersections of gender, education and poverty.  

Areas of focus 

• Historical trajectories 
• Socio, economic and cultural dimensions 
• Policy formulations 
• Digitalisation 
• Inclusion and sustainable development 

Presenters:
Prof Ellen Boeren, Research Director, School of Education, University of Glasgow 
Dr Barbara Read, Reader, School of Education, University of Glasgow 
Dr Srabani Maitra, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Glasgow 
Dr Saikat Maitra, Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Management Group, IIMC
Prof Parimala Rao, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Prof Nandini Manjrekar, Professor, School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai
Dr Manish Jain, Associate Professor, School of Education Studies, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, New Delhi
This was an online event.

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