Gender, higher education, and development: The experience for educationalists at Gaza’s universities

This paper explores the gender experiences of educationalists at two of Gaza’s universities. As part of my PhD research at the University of Cambridge (2012–2017), I conducted inductive qualitative research, including 36 semi-structured interviews with academic staff and students from Gaza. The research draws on Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Bourdieu’s work on symbolic violence. The findings show that Gaza’s universities – influenced by decades of occupation, factional ideologies and intersecting forces – seem to suffer from contradictory impulses and practices regarding gender. Although Gaza's universities have played a role in the empowerment of female students and the academic staff, some of their practices nonetheless appeared to reinforce societal gender inequalities. This paper documents their pre-October 2023 history and calls for rethinking gender norms, and policies in higher education in Gaza. Once Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza ends, it provides insights for rebuilding a more equitable Palestinian university system.