ABSTRACT
The starting point of the study on which this book draws, the thematic interest in education, gender and development in general, and Tanzania in particular, was pragmatic and guided by development cooperation and development policy. The reason for this was that in 2003, when I was first introduced to this ‘country case’, I used to work for a consultancy company that specialised in the area of education and development, and we were tendering for the support services of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland for the Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) in Tanzania. Evidently, my understanding of the phenomena was based on and instructed by a particular kind of literature, and indeed, the very reason for becoming more interested in this area of study was to question the information and knowledge base used to put development politics and policies into practice, and to assess development and change. In other words, I started to ask questions about the validity of the mainstream understanding of gender equality and equity in education as the basis of development policy formulation and hence the basis of implementation and assessment. After the unfinished tendering process, we submitted a research proposal to
the Academy of Finland, succeeded in getting funds for a two-year pre-study, and commenced the macro-level policy research focusing on the gendered achievements and challenges of education sector reform in the country. Later, in order to develop an understanding of education, gender and development further, the policy-informed pre-study was complemented with a study that was first and foremost concerned with women’s educational experiences and insights.
