A historical review and analysis of UNESCO’s gender equality in education

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Since its establishment in 1945, UNESCO’s approach to gender equality in education has progressed through four key phases: legal provision for equal access to educational resources, education to enable female participation in economic development, addressing power dynamics to advance female development, and gender mainstreaming for empowerment. These shifts reflect a dynamic interaction between institutional frameworks, global priorities, and evolving theoretical perspectives. However, the gender equality strategies promoted by UNESCO have not fundamentally addressed the structural inequities within educational systems. The limitations of these strategies include the reproduction of gendered power relations, biases in global universalist narratives, and the absence of intersectional perspectives. UNESCO’s reliance on a liberal feminist framework tends to reduce complex gender politics to technocratic solutions that align with neoliberal ideals, thus limiting more radical critiques of the Global North’s dominant discourse. To foster true gender equality, it is essential to transform educational systems, decolonize knowledge, and strengthen the agency and voice of intersectionally marginalized groups.