DefinePK

Abstract

This study significantly advances our understanding of the complex relationship between gender and globalization in reshaping the landscape of higher education in Pakistan. It explores how gendered pathways influence and are influenced by global knowledge flows in the transformation of academic structures, practices, and epistemic hierarchies. Employing a qualitative research design, the study relies on secondary data drawn from online academic databases, including published research articles, policy reports, and theoretical works on gender and higher education. Using content analysis, the research identifies key themes including gendered participation, academic mobility, institutional barriers, and epistemic inequality within Pakistani universities. Findings assert that globalization has opened new avenues for collaboration, research visibility, and pedagogical reform, while simultaneously reproducing existing gender hierarchies. Female academics in Pakistan face structural and cultural constraints that limit their engagement with transnational academic networks and access to global academic capital. Theoretical insights from the sociology of knowledge, Bourdieu (1986) theory of practice, and feminist standpoint and postcolonial feminist theories illuminate how local gender norms and global power structures intersect to shape academic opportunities and recognition. The study concludes that the transformation of higher education in Pakistan is not merely a product of globalization but a gendered and contested process requiring institutional, cultural, and epistemic reorientation toward inclusivity and equity.