Gender equity in Commonwealth higher education

This article explores emerging themes from the literature on gender and higher education in low-income Commonwealth countries. It attempts to engage with a range of unpublished or 'grey' literature and to identify aspects of gender inequality that universally disturb and discomfort. The dominant literature in the field of gender and higher education is from the UK, USA, Northern Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Yet there is considerable gender equity activity also in low-income Commonwealth countries. But the nature of gendered change or obstacles to gender equality in higher education have not been systematically mapped across the Commonwealth and there has been an absence of multilateral dissemination. The article highlights how gender has been excluded as a category of analysis in writing on the changing political economy of higher education and the development of borderless provision.