Monitoring and Measuring Gender Equality in Education (M2GE2) at Various Levels: Considering Data Use and Assumptions

• In Event: Gender and Education Committee Highlighted Session: Gender equality and education in the post-2015 agenda part 1: Theoretical considerations for monitoring and measurement

Abstract

The ways in which development efforts towards gender equality have been monitored and measured in the past has been related to what counts as evidence for different international development organizations and stakeholder groups. What constitutes evidence of gender equality has depended on the user’s assumptions or beliefs about data, what constitutes data, and how stakeholders plan to use data. Thus, our understanding of gender equality has been strongly influenced by beliefs and biases about "quality data" and how it should be collected and used. Advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and accountability to donors all represent different perspectives on the kinds of data collected and the ways in which measurement is undertaken. This paper begins with a discussion of the current status of scholarship on measures of gender equality in education and then examines how gender equality measurement differs and depends on what counts as evidence. The authors of this monograph propose a four-level framework of monitoring and measurement (i.e., local, national, cross-national, universal) and elucidate how theories of data usage have driven measurement at each level. The presentation concludes with a discussion of new theoretical perspectives of measuring gender equality for the future, post-2015 era.

Authors

• Raya Hegeman-Davis, Miske Witt and Associates

• Shirley Miske, Miske Witt & Associates Inc.