ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies how the lexicon of gender parity linked with global policy had currency in the institutional terrains of a middle space, partly as a means of reporting, and for some as an opening to raise more national issues of what gender inequalities meant. The difficulties of confronting the gender inequalities of institutions or in common sense views suggest silences in the terrain of the public sphere, and very limited opportunities for professional organisations to put arguments for gender equality or the salience of global policy. These different meanings of gender and the relationships they illuminate are located in institutional, professional, civil society and public sphere terrains of a middle space where speaking, listening, reflecting, connecting and acting are sometimes possible, but sometimes thwarted or difficult. Gender parity was a neutral mechanism of exchanging information which helped monitor who was where in the education system, and this was what global policy required.
