ft summary report. The second and final section will offer a general analysis and summary of the issues raised by the draft summary report.
The authors begin by asserting that "the gender gap in educational attainment appears to be in the process of closing everywhere in the world, so that in some cases a strong policy on closing the gender gap is no longer necessary" (Knodel and Jones, n.d.). The statement is unclear and inconsistant. If the gender gap were closing everywhere, and at an acceptable rate, a policy might not be needed anywhere, not simply in "some" cases.
On the authors' other introductory point, educational disparities by socioeconomic level, they cite only studies in Thailand and Vietnam, both in the same region, and by any standard far too narrow a base on which to assert any general view about the significance of social and income class in shaping educational disparities.
It is undoubtedly true that class disparities in educational opportunity and attainment are widespread around the world, and these disparities are surely worthy of the most serious attention. It is not at all clear, however, that an emphasis on increasing educational opportunities for girls is inconsistant with, or would detract from, an emphasis on increasing such opportunities to socioeconomic groups, yet the authors seem to take as assumed that a conflict exists between these goals.
The authors go on to a methodological discussion, arguing that they "prefer to
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