Women’s information literacy and information behaviour in higher education: A review of feminist research themes in the literature

Feminist theory is an under-utilised approach in information literacy (IL) research. This paper aims to address this deficit by reviewing the recent literature on women’s IL in higher education from a feminist perspective. It takes a modified scoping review approach, analysing the literature according to themes of feminist research practices. It uses as a starting point a framework developed by Urquhart and Yeoman (2010), to map feminist themes to IB research. It extends this framework with additional feminist research themes identified by Olesen (2018).

The review finds that while some research has considered gender differences in information literacy, most IL research that considers gender does so only in a surface way and neglects feminist theory.

The paper demonstrates that feminist themes are under-explored in IL literature. It recommends further attention on themes including power dynamics, valuing of individual knowledge, and intersectionality. A more explicit exploration of these themes could illuminate our understanding of women’s information literacy in higher education.