The intersection of public policies and gender : understanding state action in education / Nelly P. Stromquist -- Assessing the status and prospects of women's empowerment through education : a case study of women students at the University of The Gambia / Caroline Manion -- Structure and agency in India's teacher education policy : women teachers' progress through a critical feminist lens / Sandra L. Stacki -- Feast or famine for female education in Kenya? A structural approach to gender equity / Lucy Mule -- Promoting girls' education in Africa : evidence from the field between 1996 and 2003 / David W. Chapman, Shirley J. Miske -- The dance of agency and structure in an empowerment educational program in Mali and the Sudan / Karen Monkman, Rebecca Miles, Peter B. Easton -- Res publica revisited : gendered agency through education in NGOs / Cathryn Magno -- Their one best hope : educating daughters in China / Vilma Seeberg -- Female classroom assistants : agents of change in refugee classrooms in West Africa? / Jacki Kirk, Rebecca Winthrop -- A world culture of equality? The institutional structure of schools and cross-national gender differences in academic achievement / Alexander W. Wiseman -- Looking beyond the household : the importance of community-level factors in understanding underrepresentation of girls in Indian education / Amita Chudgar -- Life's structures and the individual's agency : making sense of women's words / Flavia Ramos -- Policy as practice, agency as voice, research as intervention : imag(in)ing girls' education in China / Heidi Ross -- Appendix. Abbreviated overview of selected policy recommendations on education and training of adolescent girls and adult women.