The proposed summary report on girls' education by John Knodel and Gavin Jones takes a position opposed to any special emphasis on increasing educational opportunities for girls. The authors appear to regard educational inequalities by class and income as much more consequential than inequalities by sex: writing in their initial paragraph that, based on certain studies, "the strongest disparities in educational attainment are found between groups of different socioeconomic level" (Knodel and Jones, n.d.). At the end of their executive summary they suggest that "documenting inequality by sex is easier than documenting inequality by socioeconomic background," and go on to imply that a focus on gender inequalities is in effect an easy way out, avoiding the greater difficulties of measuring socioeconomic inequalities.
This draft summary report, however, is gravely flawed. It is shot through with inconsistancies, unsupported conclusions, and perhaps most gravely, with what appear to be hidden assumptions regarding the roles of women in society. On two separate occasions in the draft, the authors appear to regard women's educational levels as significant primarily, if not almost solely, for its effect on fertility and childraising. That women might have important roles to play that are unrelated to motherhood, and that girls' education might be important in preparing them for such other roles, seems to be dismissed without consideration.
The draft summary report suffers in addition from inconsistancies and outright contradictions in the text. Some of which may be due to simple errors in drafting and preparation, but the result is to leave some important points unclear, requiring interpolation of the authors' intent. These uncertainties will be addressed where they arise.
The remainder of this evaluation will comprise two sections. The first section will address, point by point, the arguments and claims made in the dra...