ABSTRACT
Each woman in this study understood development of the self through education to be an act that has intrinsic ethical worth for both the individual and society. This perspective stands in stark contrast to the instrumental purposes (Coyne 1996) commonly refl ected in dominant models of education. Instrumental purposes reproduce dominant discourses and position as marginal other purposes of education. In a capitalist society, one signifi cant purpose of education is to reproduce effective labour (Barrett 1988). Within the capitalist model, women have felt the burden of ‘Counting for Nothing’ (Waring 1988), often providing unpaid labour in the sphere of private ‘invisible’ work (Friedan 1963; Barrett 1988). Further, women of colour have been theorised as largely comprising a reserve pool of service and domestic labour in capitalist economies (Bruegel 1979; Carby 1997). From these critical perspectives, economic, gendered and race ideologies determine the ‘visibility’ and ‘value’ of individuals against a capitalist framework. Dominant models of education might be understood as functional to these purposes.
