1. Orientations Toward the Study of<br >Women s Education in the Third World<br >GAIL P. KELLY AND CAROLYN M. ELLIOT I<br >The number of women being educated in the Third World nations of<br >Africa， Asia， Latin America， and the Middle East and the amount of<br >education women receive have both expanded markedly since the 1960s.<br >Female enrollment in primary school has more than doubled， and at the<br >secondary and tertiary levels the increases have been as dramatic.1<br >Despite these gains， women remain under-represented at all levels of<br >education relative to men. Fewer females than males enter educational<br >programs， be they formal or nonformal; fewer receive technical and<br >vocational training; and women account for a very small proportion of<br >enrollment in postsecondary education.<br > The undereducation of women --its causes， the changes in female<br > education uatterns， and their signkficance both to societies and to<br > women s lives- is the focus of this volume. Our goal is to stimulate fur-<br > ther scholarship on the education of women in the Third World and<br > develop research that will serve as a basis for educational reform to<br > enhance women s participation in schooling， improve women s lives，<br > and ultimately promote social well-being. The underlying premises of<br > this book are that women ought to be educated， that education can have<br > beneficial effects on women， and that the current pattern of female<br > undereducation in the Third World can and should be changed.<br > The study of women s education is our major concern and we take<br > it very seriously. The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of ex-<br > cellent research studies on very important topics concerning<br > women-their roles and relative status， their participation in the work<br > force and in politics， their contribution to economic development， and<br > so forth. This scholarship is rich and highly relevant for understanding<br > the significance of education to women s lives. However， most of it does<br > not directly consider education. We learn little from this body of<br > knowledge about why women attend school， what they learn in school，<br > how education affects them， or whether education makes a contribution<br > to improving their lives apart from class， ethnicity， and other social<br > background factors. These are among the issues that we hope to il-<br > luminate in the following pages.<br > There is a considerable research literature on the education of<br > women in Western industrialized societies. Most studies have focused<br > on women s education in the United States and Canada， but there is a<br >sabelle Debld， The School Education of Girls (Paris: UNESCO， 1981<br ><br >