This is an exemplary book that documents how academics contribute to the transformation of higher education through gender mainstreaming in teaching and research, and allows the reader to appreciate the use of gender as a key analytical category in understanding society, and academic processes. I highly recommend reading this book.
Rosemarie Mwaipopo, Social Anthropologist, Tanzania.
This book on Gender-Inclusive Higher Education in Tanzania is a must read for everyone interested in understanding factors that sustain gender inequalities. Universities just like the society they belong, are affected by factors that consciously or unconsciously weave gender biases. The result are structures and policies that advantage only one gender- the male over the female. This justifies the need for social transformation. Only then will female be included in research, leadership and development.
Ruth Nsibirano, School of Women and Gender Studies
This book explores the complex interaction between gender theory and practice in transforming 14 Higher Education Institutions in Tanzania. In so doing, and in this context, it provides an expanded understanding of genders, mainstreaming and equality. Through a detailed analysis and critique of the Gender Awareness and Transformation through education project it explains how changes took place, while respecting the traditional views and narratives and expanded our understanding of resistance and the challenges that such work confronts. This book raises new questions for debate and research, making it a rich resource for all people working in High Education Institutions where social, political and economic issues are being researched and policy and practice refined.
Mary Crewe, Research Associate, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria.
It seems appropriate that a chance meeting between two female scholars with a shared interest in gender equality in systems of higher education should give rise to a decade of friendship and scholarly engagement and this important collection, a significant addition to the scholarship on gender and equality. African relational understandings of gender are given voice throughout the collection. In a field often dominated by the northern and western social-libertarian ideologies of individual freedoms and rights, these new/old wisdoms have much to offer. Despite the ideological differences in the analyses, the conclusions are similar; emerging from a decade of initiatives some documented in this collection, change is slow, hard-won, usually led by women, and sometimes at a price. This collection is a significant addition to the global scholarship on gender and equality in higher education. In a field more familiar with the western focus on individual rights and freedoms, the African scholarship of care and interconnectedness underpinning the analyses is a challenge for scholarship and public discourse to move beyond familiar ideologies in the pursuit of institutional and social transformation.
Prof Anne Looney, Executive Dean| DCU Institute of Education| Dublin City University
