Abstract:

Gender has always been one of the factors causing unequal access to the educational opportunities. In Iran, the gender division of labour in the private and public spheres and cultural factors, especially gender stereotypes, are among the most important obstacles preventing women from having access to equal educational opportunities.
According to the national statistics of the last 3 decades, the population of illiterate women has been considerably more than men. Nevertheless, the sex gap in education tends to dwindle in the ages upper than 20, reaching a point at which the proportion of female entrants to the undergraduate level is about 40 per cent of total entrants at present. This trend shows that we are approaching some quantitative equilibrium in the distribution of male and female students in the undergraduate level.
But in the postgraduate levels this trend is somehow different. The proportion of accepted female students in the M.S. and M.A. level has not changed and remains around 26 per cent of total students, however in the PhD level, the proportion has reduced from 35 per cent in 1996 to 21 per cent in 2006.

Furthermore, there are considerable distinctions between the proportion of male and female students in different academic fields. According to the statistics of higher education in the last public census (2006), 83 per cent of the accepted students of technical and engineering disciplines have been males, whereas about 60 per cent of accepted students in humanism and art disciplines have been females and 65 per cent of accepted students in hygiene and welfare disciplines were females too.
The lower presence of women in the technical fields is because these fields are considered “masculine” and the lower presence of women in the post graduate levels represents higher importance of postgraduate educations for men in the view point of policy makers of higher education.

The politicians’ concerns with the consequences of higher level of education among women, as well as, renewed debate over necessity of educating women in the disciplines appropriate to their traditional roles, namely housekeeping and mothering, require the analysis of current procedures in postgraduate education. Hence, in this article I have tried to shed some light on gender trends in higher education of Iran and respond to the concerns mentioned earlier. Investigating and analysing this field could represent some of the problems of women’s education in our society. Whatever the results may be, one thing is undisputable: In the mind of the politicians, the necessity of education of women and men is not equal.

Keywords:

Gender, educational opportunities, gender division of disciplines, gender division of labour, Higher Education.