Conclusion: Intersections and Drivers of Change in Gender, Religion and Education

Abstract

This collection traces the intricate nexus between gender, religion and education. This has entailed revealing the interactions, interdependencies and complex combinations of influence between three axes. The first obvious point in trying to draw conclusions from the endeavour relates to the difficulty of isolating just these three phenomena, particularly the intersection of culture and religion. Many contributors have drawn attention to this, for example, in terms of the impact of patriarchy but also in revealing the sometimes unacknowledged diversity among women which relates to features other than their gender identity. In noting that the framework of intersectionality is rarely applied to Muslim women in Germany, for example, Katie Sandford-Gaebel also raises the question of whether the list in intersectionality is limitless – gender, race, class, education, religion, sexuality, followed by Judith Butler’s ‘embarrassed etc.’ And as Heidi Mirza points out, there is also ‘embodied intersectionality’. Yet trying to combine the three axes seems sufficiently ambitious and provides more than enough material for future thinking and research.