This event is a book launch for Gendering the Massification Generation: Higher Education Access and Choice in India (Routledge, 2024). The book examines why young people from the same families and communities in India experience different decision-making processes regarding higher education access because of their gender. In India and other contexts where higher education is massifying, and gender parity of enrolment has been reached at undergraduate level, there are still many questions to be asked about gender and access to higher education. Based on an exploratory study of gendered higher education access and choice within the state of Haryana, India, the authors explore gender inequalities of higher education access and choice in the Indian context and connect this with the broader international phenomenon of widening participation. Through an in-depth analysis of the ‘massification generation’, where young people from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds are accessing higher education, often for the first time in their families and communities, the book applies a lens of social disadvantage and gender, and explores the norms and transgressions of femininity and masculinity in relation to higher education access and choice.

This book launch event includes presentations by some of the authors about the context for the book, an overview of the book, and the wider project within which the book is nested. Moreover, three invited speakers provide commentary on the contribution that the book makes to the international field of higher education studies.

Schedule

Bios:

Book launch speakers

Mikateko Mathebula is Senior Researcher at the SARCHI Chair’s Higher Education and Human Development Research Programme at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

Rajeshwari is Professor in the Geography Department at Kurukshetra University, Haryana, India.

Elaine Unterhalter is Professor of Education and International Development, UCL Institute of Education, UK

Book authors

Emily F. Henderson is Reader in Gender and International Higher Education, Department of Education Studies, and Director of the Doctoral Education and Academia Research Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom. She is also Visiting Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India.

Nidhi S. Sabharwal is Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, India, and is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Ann Stewart is Professor of Law in the Law School, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, and previously Visiting Research Professor, Centre for Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Julie Mansuy is Founder and Director of Active4Research Ltd. She was the ‘Fair Chance for Education’ Project Research Coordinator and holds a PhD from the Law School, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Anjali Thomas is an early career researcher, recently holding post-doctoral roles at the University of Warwick on the ‘Fair Chance for Education’ project and University of Liverpool; she holds a PhD from Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick, United Kingdom (funded by WCPRS and Fair Chance Foundation). Anjali was also an Early Career Fellow at IAS, University of Warwick.

Sharmila Rathee is Assistant Professor at the Department of Elementary Education, University of Delhi, India, and a Recipient of the American Disability Act Inclusive Education Fellowship.

Renu Yadav is Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education, Central University of Haryana, Mahendragarh, Haryana, India. She is also Convenor of the Women’s Empowerment Cell and Deputy Dean of Students’ Welfare.

Nikita Samanta is a PhD researcher in Gender and Education at the University of Warwick Law School, funded by WCPRS and Fair Chance Foundation.