Re-Envisage Education for Gender Equality and Green Transformation in the Age of a Digital Society?

This paper explores opportunities, challenges and potential threats linked with digital technologies for supporting women activists’ engagement and leadership in processes for gender equality, social justice and green transformation in education in South Africa drawing on research conducted in three neighbourhoods where acute effects of climate change, environmental degradation and gender inequalities in education intersect.

Literature highlights the importance of understanding how climate change, gender, education, poverty and other social divisions intersect and are localised in different contexts (Pankhurst, 2023), the necessity of addressing intersecting inequalities in education in ways that engage with long-standing strategic, feminist issues around gender equality, empowerment, social justice and countering misogyny, actively involving women most affected by these issues in processes of change (Moletsane et al., 2021), and the need for better data (Longlands et al., 2024). Studies also discuss how digital technologies can support women, especially poor and/or marginalised women, to access information, develop greater awareness of rights, have their voices heard and facilitate or enhance participation in different forums, share knowledge, ideas and information and build solidarity and networks (UNESCO 2024; UN Women 2024; Barrera Yañez et al. 2023). But studies also highlight how digital technologies, and rapid technological change, can mask, reinforce, deepen and lead to new forms of gender inequality, discrimination, silencing, distortion and misinformation, enabling practices and narratives to spread that further marginalise and discriminate (Galloway 2024; Di Meco & Wilfore 2021).

This paper considers this dilemma. The research draws on the AGEE Framework and participatory approach (www.gendereddata.org), both informed by the capability approach, to consider local insights on gender, education and climate, how connections can be built to ensure women’s increased access to information and social capital can support their leadership in climate activism, and how better data can inform effective policymaking and practice in this area.