From Concept To Action:A Study Of UNICEF’s Promotion Of Gender Equality Education In Africa

“Gender equality” is an important element and indicator of equity in education,and the international community has always viewed gender equality in education as a common vision in the era of globalization.Guided by a human rights-based approach to education that puts children’s rights first,UNICEF has focused on gender equality in education since the beginning of its involvement in education.The organization has long promoted gender equality education in Africa,aiming to ensure that girls and boys have the same rights,resources and opportunities in education,and has worked to build gender-equitable education systems that have profoundly influenced the cause of education for all.This study uses global governance theory and gender and development theory as the theoretical foundation,and examines the background,philosophy and actions of UNICEF in promoting gender equality education in Africa through textual analysis,historical research and comparative research.The study points out that the organization’s philosophy of promoting gender equality education in Africa has gone through four stages of development,characterized by its humanist ideals and the primacy of human rights,its emphasis on digital technology empowerment to narrow the digital gender divide,its support for quality education sharing to facilitate gender transformation education,and its reliance on partnerships to highlight the sense of global governance.UNICEF’s actions to promote gender equality education in Africa echo its educational philosophy,and a cross-sectional comparison of the organization’s education programs in Nigeria,Kenya and Uganda reveals three models of action,including proactive,collaborative and digitally empowered.The study concludes that UNICEF’s gender equality education in Africa is effective and sustainable educational assistance.The study found that the mystery and mechanism of UNICEF’s effective gender equality education work in Africa lies in the logic of “from concept to action”,which is revealed through three dimensions of values,methodology and implementation: the harmonization of instrumental rationality and humanism,the complementarity of educational concepts and country-specific actions,and the integration of action plans and projects.The logic is based on the above logic and action model.Based on the above working logic and action model,the study proposes the inspiration of the organization’s work on gender equality education in Africa for China’s participation in international education assistance: making capacity building as the main objective of assistance,integrating the participation of multiple subjects into the education assistance system,and implementing implementation in the whole process of education assistance;and the inspiration for China’s development of gender equality education: attaching importance to the ideological enlightenment of gender equality education,emphasizing the power of and the development logic and discourse system of gender equality education with Chinese characteristics.