Over the past decades, there has been a growing awareness that institutions aiming to foster equality, in fact, sometimes reproduce existing inequalities. Simultanously, a consensus has emerged that people with different gender identities profit to different degrees from the opportunities for (self-)development offered by institutions. How, then, do institutions affect forms of (educational) (in)equality—both in positive and negative ways?
In this project, a multidisciplinary team of humanities researchers from universities in the Netherlands and Belgium explores this conundrum. It does so by studying pathways to women's empowerment and (self-)development, both within and outside institutional contexts, from a historical perspective. First, the team explores what educational opportunities formal institutions like schools, universities, and guilds did and did not create for women. Second, we explore what alternative paths to empowerment and self-development women pursued, when they were excluded from institutions of advanced education. When institutions fail, what alternatives emerge?
The project takes the form of a series of workshops, organized over two years in collaboration with various (societal) partners.