This seminal volume fills a gap in current literature on education, gender, and development by giving voice to the Arab Gulf region, contrasting key issues with those felt globally in order to support a more sustainable, gender‑equitable future of education in the region.

Heavily linked to Sustainable Development Goal 4 – which calls for an inclusive and equitable quality of education for all – this book presents case studies on a wide range of issues such as school attainment, academic performance, and gender disparities within higher education in the Arabian Gulf, using quantitative research, qualitative interviews, and documentary analysis to make broader connections to issues of global significance. Exploring a deeper and more holistic understanding of the external factors which affect both participation and performance within education and academic settings, this book considers the influence of home support systems as well as cultural and familial factors which can lead to large‑scale gendered differences in learning attitudes, attendance, and even testing, in the region.

Ultimately supporting those in the education sector through frameworks of gender inclusion in both schools and higher educational settings, this volume will be of use to researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students involved with higher education, school leadership, management and administration, sociology of education, and gender studies in the Arab Gulf region more broadly.

Martina Dickson, Editor, is a faculty member with specialism in gender in education at the Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE.