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The book 'Gendering the Massification Generation: Higher Education Access and Choice in IndiaLink opens in a new window' by Prof Emily Henderson, Dr Nidhi Sabharwal, Dr Anjali Thomas, Julie Mansuy, Prof Ann Stewart, Dr Sharmila Rathee, Dr Renu Yadav and Nikita Samanta has recently featured in two book reviews that have now been published in highly reputable academic journals. One by Prof. Karuna Chanana is featured in Springer’s Higher Education, whilst the second review by Dr Jyothsna Belliappa is in Taylor and Francis’ Compare – a journal focusing on comparative and international education.

Prof Karuna Chanana is a major scholar in the field of gender and higher education in India. Access her book review at - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01325-8 Link opens in a new window

Prof Chanana's comprehensive review includes discussion of the context of Haryana and India more broadly and the social norms and policy landscape of gender and higher education. A key quote from the review states:

'This book presents an extremely interesting web of weaving several threads and transform the ordinary into extraordinary and compiling a finished product which is very critical in understanding the gendered higher education and the interplay of tradition and modernity especially in India (Chanana, 1993) and South Asia but in several other countries. It is an extremely well written book and makes for a very interesting read on a serious topic of Higher Education concern to those who are familiar with experiential condition of denial of education to girls and are researching women’s entry into higher education with trepidation and expectation' (pp. 5-6)

Dr Jyothsna Belliappa is an Assistant Professor based at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, MAHE, Bengaluru, India. Access her book review at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057925.2024.2378609Link opens in a new window . The review includes the important point that debates about gender and access to higher education need to be linked together with considerations that reach beyond access and into participation and beyond. A key quote from the review notes:

'This book will interest final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in education and gender studies. The clarity with which it lays out its argument also makes it a good model for teaching academic writing within many disciplines.' (p. 1252)

Available from Taylor and FrancisLink opens in a new window, Gendering the Massification Generation, was published earlier in 2024 featuring the 2018 localised, mixed methods study conducted in the state of Haryana in northern India. It examined why young people from the same families and communities in India experience different decision-making processes regarding higher education access because of their gender. In India and other contexts where higher education is massifying, and gender parity of enrolment has been reached at undergraduate level, there are still many questions to be asked about gender and access to higher education. Based on an exploratory study of gendered higher education access and choice within the state of Haryana, India, the authors explored gender inequalities of higher education access and choice in the Indian context and connected this with the broader international phenomenon of widening participation.

Through an in-depth analysis of the ‘massification generation’, where young people from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds are accessing higher education, often for the first time in their families and communities, readers are encouraged to apply a lens of social disadvantage and gender, and to recognise the norms and transgressions of femininity and masculinity in relation to higher education access and choice.