Visualising From “Above” Or From The Margins? Defining The “University Woman” And Internationalising Knowledge: Types Of University Training (IFUW, 1934)

Description

This paper traces the social processes and social categories codified in the numerical data and inscription devices deployed in Types of University Training (IFUW 1934). This survey was initially compiled by the Committee of Standards of the International Federation of University Women to advise its Council on the requirements for membership in national associations wishing to affiliate. The Committee of Standards surveyed the qualifications of members of national associations of university women (Hunyadi 2016) to determine who “counted” as a “university woman” in a situation where the uneven development of women’s higher education had resulted in the potential for the term “university woman” to be differently interpreted in different countries (Cabanel 2018). Types of University Training sought to provide “a comparative illustration of the types of educational systems” and of programmes that had admitted IFUW members and to illustrate the “variety in the value of [their] degrees” (introduction). The paper argues that while surveys have been associated with the collection of “commanding knowledge” from above (Yeo, 1996), power relations of gender entangled in the social biography of Types of University Training in ways that complicate this designation.

Period	21 Jun 2021
Event title	International Standing Conference for History of Education
Event type	Other
Degree of Recognition	International