Nikoo Nikoonazari

Following the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran framed girls' and women's education as key to promoting equality and equity. However, access to state-funded education has largely favored men and women who are admitted to state universities and face significant barriers to employment and equitable wages. Ethnic minority women in Iran navigate additional obstacles in accessing education and employment. My thesis analyzes the gap between higher education policies that are predicated on a nationalist discourse of gender equity and how these policies affect Iranian Kurdish women. Drawing on literatures in feminist geography, geographies of higher education, and postcolonial feminism, I analyze how nationalism as a gendered social process is linked to place, gender, ethnicity, language, and higher education. I pose three main questions. First, what barriers do Kurdish women experience in higher education? Second, what do these obstacles tell us about education, nationalism, and gender equity? Third, how do educational policies affect Kurdish women’s ability to secure permanent employment? My research methods include content analysis of Iranian education policy documents and in-depth interviews with university-educated Kurdish women in Iran to understand the intersection of ethnicity, religion, gender, and language in relation to educational equity.