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KEY WORDS: women's education, educational history, women's colleges, college majors, fields of study
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews a diverse literature on gender and higher education. Gender inequality is more pronounced in some aspects of the educational systems than in others. The analysis distinguishes 1) access to higher education; 2) college experiences; and 3) postcollegiate outcomes. Women fare relatively well in the area of access, less well in terms of the college experience, and are particularly disadvantaged with respect to the outcomes of schooling. Explanations of gender inequality in higher education should distinguish between these different aspects of education and should explain those contexts in which women have attained parity as well as those in which they continue to lag behind men.
INTRODUCTION
In this essay I draw on a disparate literature to discuss several key questions regarding the relationship between gender inequality and higher education. What aspects of education exhibit the most pronounced gender disparities? How does the education of women interface with gender inequality in the workplace and in the family? Has the expansion of education for women stimulated changes in other arenas, or has the educational system merely reflected developments in the rest of society?
I found research pertinent to these questions in diverse fields outside of sociology, including economics, history, social psychology, career counseling, and educational policy. One recent review of the literature on the effects of college on students included a bibliography running 150 pages (Pascarella & Terenzini 1991). Rather than review every study that considers the question of sex differences, I focus on those issues that are central to the question of gender inequality. I examine areas that have been vigorously debated-such as the effects of single-sex colleges on women's achievements. I also highlight topics that call for more careful scrutiny-such as why women's achievements in higher education in the United States surpass those in many other industrial countries.
Educational theory and research remain focused on social class disparities. Classic studies of inequality in education typically have focused on disparities by social class among men (Blau & Duncan 1967, Bourdieu & Passeron 1977, Collins 1979, Karabel & Halsey 1977). When gender inequality is discussed, it receives relatively limited attention. For example, Aronowitz & Giroux (1993) devote less than 2 of...