Gail Kelly and Carolyn Elliott have assembled the latest and best available scholarship from a range of disciplines to illuminate the determinants, nature, and outcomes of women’s education in third World nations. This study focuses on the undereducation of women in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, delving into its causes, changes in female education patterns and the significance of these changes to societies and to women’s lives. Articles in this volume lay the foundation for further research by examining women’s schooling from the novel perspective that the social and economic outcomes of women’s education are shaped by gender-sex systems that subordinate women to men.