Education for All: a gender and disability perspective

Introduction In light of the international commitment to Education for All (EFA), how are girls with disabilities faring? In truth, we don’t know, although from what we can tell, they are not faring well. Widespread cultural biases based on gender and disability greatly limit their educational opportunities. Why don’t we know more? Those committed to gender equity, by failing to consider disability, and those committed to disability equity, by failing to consider gender, have unwittingly rendered disabled girls invisible. Girls with disabilities are a large, diverse group, although it is difficult to determine exactly who and how many are included, in part because there are many definitions of disability, not only across countries but also within the same country. These varied definitions demonstrate that disability is a social construct, as much rooted in cultural, social, political, legal and economic factors as in biology. While the World Health Organization is currently leading an effort to achieve a new international definition that considers many of these factors, no consensus has yet been reached. Here, girls with disabilities are defined as those with physical, sensory, emotional, intellectual,