Qatari women in a corporatized higher education setting: International reforms and their local bearings

Abstract

Discussions of the difficulties Qatari women experience in higher educational settings are unlikely to be found in international organization or government reports on the State of Qatar. Instead, recent reports have tended to gloss over gender inequalities raising a ?successful girl discourse.? Drawing on my own teaching experience at the national university in Qatar, focus-groups data, and in-depth interviews with the female students there, I try to highlight the disproportionate bearings ?international? neoliberal reforms have specifically had on women. I use a critical feminist approach to policy analysis to shed light on those policies that have impacted the female students. By doing so, I try to problematize the state?s limited discourse on women education and contribute to the growing body of literature examining the intersections of gender and education policy in an increasingly neoliberal context.