Judith Gill, Katharine Esson, and Rosalina Yuen: A Girl’s Education: Schooling and the Formation of Gender, Identities, and Future Visions

Excerpt

The struggles of growing up female have been documented for decades and are nothing new in today’s society. Women have had to overcome major societal obstacles, such as the right to vote and a right to education. Yet, that right remains limited, even though education can largely determine whether a person develops into what they wish to be. Expanding on this proposition, Judith Gill, Katharine Esson, and Rosalina Yuen argue in their book A Girl’s Education: Schooling and the Formation of Gender, Identities, and Future Visions that education is crucial to adolescent girls’ development and shapes her into the woman she will become. Their book aims to identify the core issues facing adolescent girls in today’s world, and how the education system has failed them, creating many of these issues. The authors examine empirical evidence from studies on gender and schooling and the theories relating to that research; and they also look toward the future and the implications it holds as adolescent girls make decisions regarding the rest of their lives. The authors’ purpose is to present a broad overview of the current state of adolescent girls and their education, and offer insight as to how this could be changed or improved to create more effective educational paths. …