Equality of Opportunities at Spanish Universities?: Learning from the Experience

Abstract

The relationship between women anduniversities began in Spain little more than a century ago, the moment in whichthe first female students enrolled on university courses- women who decided tobreak with the taboos of their era and to accede to this education level. Fromthat moment onward, the incorporation of women in the university sphere hasbeen a continual process that has been accompanied, in the last few decades, bymeasures based on the principle of equal opportunities between men and women.In this article we present a historical review of the presence of women in theSpanish university sphere, and the case of the measures taken by one specificuniversity (the University of Cantabria) in the wake of this principle. Weconsider that in order to recognise the wide- reaching effect of the arrival ofthese kinds of actions, it is necessary to know the important process of changeundergone in the higher education of women in the last one hundred years.

Keywords

• history of women’s education
• universities
• equal opportunities
• gender studies
• Spain
• equality plans.