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Opening minds, improving lives: Education and women's empowerment in honduras
Abstract
Juanita was seventeen years old and pregnant with her first child when she began an activity that would "open" her mind. Living in a remote Garifuna village in Honduras, Juanita had dropped out of school after the sixth grade. In 1996, a new educational program, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (Tutorial Learning System or SAT), was started in her community. The program helped her see the world differently and open a small business. Empowering women through education has become a top priority of international development efforts. Erin MurphyGraham draws on more than a decade of qualitative research to examine the experiences of Juanita and eighteen other women who participated in the SAT program. Their narratives suggest the simple yet subtle ways education can spark the empowerment process, as well as the role of men and boys in promoting gender equality. Drawing on indepth interviews and classroom observation in Honduras and Uganda, MurphyGraham shows the potential of the SAT program to empower women through expanded access and improved quality of secondary education in Latin America and Africa. An appendix provides samples of the classroom lessons.
... This feature -linking life skills competencies to social change -is not commonly present in most work on life skills, particularly from the other two discourse communities. An explicit focus on social change -and the life skills needed to foster change processes -is a more recent feature of scholarship that is consistent with earlier work on education for youth empowerment (see DeJaeghere et al., 2016;Murphy-Graham, 2012). ...
... Furthermore, it recognizes that education can either work to reproduce or change social structures and norms that create inequalities. The transformative component of social learning is oriented toward creating equitable and just ways for all to live a good life (e.g., Murphy-Graham, 2012). This use of transformative social learning calls attention to how we think about and teach life skills relationally as well as the outcomes desired from learning them. ...
... In HEY!, we wanted to support critical thinking specifically with regards to gender inequality and child marriage. The lessons created followed a similar pedagogical approach to the SAT curriculum, often starting and ending with questions and activities that encouraged discussion (for a more detailed description of the SAT curriculum, see Murphy-Graham, 2012). In addition to questions and discussions aimed at hunting for and checking assumptions, the curriculum includes the introduction of new concepts and ideas to aid in the critical thinking process, including "multiplicity of perceptions" and exposing students to alternative ideas and ways of thinking (Brookfield, 1997, p.19). ...
This open access book critically reviews a diverse body of scholarship and practice that informs the conceptualization, curriculum, teaching and measurement of life skills in education settings around the world. It discusses life skills as they are implemented in schools and non-formal education, providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence of when, with whom, and how life skills do or do not impact young women’s and men’s lives in various contexts. Specifically, it examines the nature and importance of life skills, and how they are taught. It looks at the synergies and differences between life skills educational programmes and the way in which they promote social and emotional learning, vocational/employment education, and health and sexuality education. Finally, it explores how life skills may be better incorporated into education and how such education can address structures and relations of power to help youth achieve desired future outcomes, and goals set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Life skills education has gained considerable attention by education policymakers, researchers and educators as being the sine qua non for later achievements in life. It is nearly ubiquitous in global and national education policies, including the SDGs, because life skills are regarded as essential for a diverse set of purposes: reducing poverty, achieving gender equality, promoting economic growth, addressing climate change, fostering peace and global citizenship, and creating sustainable and healthy communities. Yet, to achieve these broad goals, questions persist as to which life skills are important, who needs to learn them, how they can be taught, and how they are best measured. This book addresses these questions.
... Overall, the review captures a range of voices (Adamu, 1999;Adiri et al., 2010;Afolayan, 2011Afolayan, , 2014Afolayan, , 2015Amadiume, 2015;Baily, 2011;Ben Chucks, 2004;Carmichael, 2011;Dutt, 2017;Eldred et al., 2014;Erulkar & Muthengi, 2009;Eweniyi & Usman, 2013;Falola & Abidogun, 2014;Fuhriman et al., 2006;Konate, 2011;Maddox, 2015;Odok, 2020;Pitikoe & Preece, 2016;Robson, 2006;Udo et al., 2020;Ukwuaba & Igbo, 2013), insights and understandings (Afolayan, 2016a(Afolayan, , 2016b(Afolayan, , 2017Akpama et al., 2011;Alhassan, 2010;Angko, 2013;Csapo, 1981;Fayokun, 2015;Frankema, 2012;Galvan, 2001;Kainuwa et al., 2013;Kaufmann et al., 2019;Kuran, 2018;Monkman, 2011;Murphy-Graham, 2012;Murphy-Graham & LIoyd, 2016;Ogunjuyigbe & Fadeyi, 2002;Parr, 2001;Stromquist, 1990Stromquist, , 1992Stromquist, , 1997Stromquist, , 2007Stromquist, , 2011Thurston, 2016;Tvdet, 2006;Uddin, 2017;Vega & Bajaj, 2016) to signify the extent to which current studies redefine existing knowledge purposefully on the subject matter (Afolayan, 2019;Bano, 2009Bano, , 2018Bano, , 2019Bano, , 2020Belete, 2011;Chilisa & Ntseane, 2010;Coombs & Ahmed, 1974;Dighe, 1985Dighe, , 1992Hoppers, 2006;Jackson, 1997;Jenkins & Idele, 2020;Kolawole, 2010;Mayombe, 2017;Mfum-Mensah, 2003;Mulenga et al., 2018;Nath, et al., 1999;Olateju, 2010;Ololube & Egbezor, 2012;Taylor et al., 2012;The Brookings Institution, 2018;UNESCO, 2015;Unterhalter et al., 2013;Usman, 2009Usman, , 2010Walker, 2012). The other parts in this chapter are organised in five parts. ...
... Whilst there are different interpretations and emphasises with respect to NFE, some common features have also been identified in the literature (Fordham, 1993;Mfum-Mensah, 2003;Murphy-Graham, 2012;Murphy-Graham & LIoyd, 2016). They are as follows: ...
... Empowerment framework is aptly relevant for this study as it is evidenced by its extensive contemporary use in the field of education to analyse how NFE programs have enhanced the capabilities of rural girls and women; in terms of financial autonomy, literacy skills and raising of consciousness about women's rights (Bandiera et al., 2012;Eldred, et al., 2014;Hashemi, et al., 1996;Moll et al., 2015;Murphy-Graham, 2012;Stromquist, 2015). These contemporary studies further lay credence on the appropriate choice of this framework for the study as it involves perspectives of different stakeholders that are relevant in the implementation of non-formal education program for girls and women in Islamic conservative communities. ...
Non-formal education has been attributed with many benefits for rural women who are unable to participate in formal schooling. However, little is known about the perspectives of non-formal education programs (NFEPs) from the lived experiences of females—especially in Nigerian Islamic conservative communities. To address this gap, this thesis explored multiple perspectives of NFEP from the lived experiences of females in a region with high rates of child marriage. Using a qualitative case study design, the data were collected through focus group discussions and interviews in two rural communities in northern Nigeria. Participants comprised two leaders from each community; three NFEP personnel; 28 females who had participated in a NFEP, and 24 females who had not participated in a NFEP (n=59). The findings provide unique insight that can guide the phenomenon of NFEPs for rural females in religiously conservative communities. The participants reported a need for literacy skills and economic independence and were generally quite positive about NFEPs in their communities. Most participants in NFEPs reported having increased knowledge, positive attitude and behaviours, improved ability to express themselves, partake in decision-making in the family, and to organise themselves for collective action—all of which resulted to empowering experiences. Also, most male partners (spouses), parents of the participants and male participants (community leaders) were supportive of the NFEP, supportive of women working outside the home and women earning money. The program participants reported that NFEP has been a positive influence on their self-worth, role in the society, future aspirations and dreams for their daughters because of their relative economic independence and the status they seem to enjoy within their communities. Female program non-participants support NFEP but many of them could not participate because their spouses and parents did not allow them. Thus, while many males supported the participation of women and girls in NFEP, gendered barriers still existed. In conclusion, females can be empowered in these conservative communities if it is done in a way that respects socio-cultural traditions.
... Previous studies worldwide evidence the link between education, empowerment and socio economic transformation (Bandiera 2012, King and Hill 2010, Kober 2016, Malik and Courtney 2010, Mc.Lean and Modi 2016, Murphy-Graham, E. 2012, Sperling, and Winthrop 2015, Swarna 2010. ...
... In the same line of reasoning, Murphy -Graham (2012) proposes that empowered individuals through good education understand, and are aware of their worth and the obligation and ability to contribute to individual and social wellbeing. Through her book, "Opening Minds, Improving Lives: Education and women empowerment in Honduras", Murphy-Graham contends that education empowers individuals to contribute to their personal and social transformation. ...
... The focus was on mature women students who combine studies and work occupations. The findings in the present study are in line with earlier research on the link between education of women in general and development (Kober 2016, Graham-Murphy 2012, 2008. In addition, the present study brought to light some empirical evidence that, if given opportunities, women in Rwanda and probably elsewhere stand to positively contribute towards societal advancement through higher education studies. ...
The Objective of the present study is to document the contribution of University studies towards empowering mature women students in Rwanda. Specifically, this study documents how University education has contributed to improve individual and social lives of women mature students in Rwanda. Interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data from one hundred and twenty mature women students located in six higher learning institutions in Rwanda. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. Findings reveal that, at individual and community levels, participants in the present study maintain that university studies helped some to maintain their jobs, others to create their own jobs or take part in activities that aim to reduce poverty, develop and increase literacy as well as healthcare awareness in the community. They felt to be morally satisfied as role models to younger generations in general and their own children in particular by using their time for academically rewarding activities instead of spending time gossiping for no personal or community advancement. They advocate for continued support to the policy of open access to higher education with flexible programmes that accommodate both working and non-working women. Higher education studies increase women competitiveness and provide opportunities for better networking. Also, findings in the present study break the established stereotype that only males are destined for higher education and for specific academic domains. The study recommends the extension and sustainability of such flexible programmes to afford capacity development of mature students. Overall, the majority of respondents converge on the "better late than never" saying, and are grateful of the open access to university studies policy regardless of the students' age.
... In HEY!, we wanted to support critical thinking specifically with regards to gender inequality and child marriage. The lessons created followed a similar pedagogical approach to the SAT curriculum, often starting and ending with questions and activities that encouraged discussion (for a more detailed description of the SAT curriculum, see Murphy-Graham, 2012). In addition to questions and discussions aimed at hunting for and checking assumptions, the curriculum includes the introduction of new concepts and ideas to aid in the critical thinking process, including "multiplicity of perceptions" and exposing students to alternative ideas and ways of thinking (Brookfield, 1997, p.19). ...
... Mercedes was able to challenge her own hegemonic assumptions -of her inferiority because she was a girl, and she was naturally weaker than boys -and reimagine what she was capable of. Her response shows that Mercedes now has a framework to understand, explain, and reject gender inequality, and to recognize her inherent worth, a key component of empowerment (Murphy-Graham, 2012). Mercedes' account suggests that she experienced cognitive dissonance as a result of the lessons, and that she was exposed to a new set of beliefs that were different to those she held before participating in HEY!. ...
This chapter presents findings from a design-based research project between the University of California, Berkeley and a Honduran non-governmental organization, Bayan Association called Holistic Education for Youth (HEY!). We explain why critical thinking is a crucial life skill to prevent child marriage in rural areas of Honduras and illustrate how critical thinking (specifically around gender inequality and marriage) was incorporated into a secondary school curriculum. We describe the pedagogies used to develop this curriculum and offer insights about its implementation. Finally, using classrooms observation and interview data, we discuss how students developed critical thinking and decision-making skills related to the gender inequality in society that has perpetuated the practice of child marriage.
... Bu dönüşüm, kadınların insan olarak doğuştan sahip oldukları değer nedeniyle kendilerine borçlu olunan yaşamın yaratılması için verilen bir mücadele sürecidir. Bu süreçte kadınların yaşamlarını ve koşullarını eleştirel bir şekilde analiz etme kapasitelerine ve bireysel, sosyal ve toplumsal değişime katkıda bulunma yeteneklerine güvenilmesi gerekir (Murphy-Graham, 2012). Bu nedenle kadının güçlenmesi, tüm kadınların yaşamlarının pek çok farklı alanında kontrol sahibi özneler olarak yeniden varlık kazanma sürecidir. ...
... Eğitimin, kadının güçlenmesi açısından oldukça büyük bir öneme sahip olduğu ve eğitim düzeyinin, kadınların kapasitelerini ortaya çıkartmalarında, ekonomik, sosyal ve politik hayata katılımlarında önemli bir rol oynadığı muhakkaktır (Demirdi-rek & Şener, 2014). Zira kadınların eğitimi, yalnızca ekonomik veya sosyal yararları nedeniyle değil, daha ziyade, kadınların yaşamlarını anlamlı kılma fırsatlarını genişletmenin ve güçlenmelerinin bir yolu olması bakımından önemli görülmektedir (Murphy-Graham, 2012). Bununla birlikte güçlenme ve eğitim arasındaki ilişkin boyutlarına ilişkin tartışmalar da bulunmaktadır. ...
In this study, it was aimed to examine that perspectives of female university students on women’s empowerment and the problems of empowerment of women living in Turkey. In this context, quantitative research was conducted on a sample of 219 female students studying at different departments of Hacettepe University. First, via questionnaires were received the assessment of the students about the factors that played a role in the empowerment of women, the responsible actors and the importance of participation in the decisions for women’s empowerment, and the origins of the problem of women’s empowerment. Then, it was tried to understand, in the eyes of students, what are the limitations of movement freedom of women, and which factors diminish women’s power of the participation in decisions and their power to control their own lives. As a result of the research, the importance of the areas that can provide transformation at the social level as well as the empowerment of women at the individual level was presented. According to the research, it is essential for women to make choices that will make them strong, to participate in an empowering education, to take part in the field of politics, and to work paid improving the social and economic situation of women.
... A second strand emerging from the literature on education and empowerment (e.g. Monkman, 2011;Murphy-Graham, 2012;Loots and Walker, 2015) tries to highlight the potential of the capability approach for this work, but does not fully engage with the debate about capabilities and empowerment. In this section I first discuss these two complementary literatures and then turn to my own reading of some of the work on empowerment and capabilities drawing out the potential this suggest to me for thinking about education, gender and participation. ...
... The nature of structures, and how they shape agency becomes particularly salient. Whether approaches stress the nuanced and contextualized notion of agency, she associates with work on the capability approach, or whether it is associated with more schematic mappings of relationship between individuals, groups and organisational forms, she highlights a complex relationship between education and empowerment now documented in a number of empirical studies (Unterhalter, Heslop and Mamedu, 2013;Murphy-Graham, 2012), Monkman (2011) points out that all this work shows that this relationship is neither linear nor direct. Indeed the relational dimensions, for example with differently situated men, with historically constituted and changing groups, with institutions understood both as organizations and sets of rules or norms, and with different meanings of power, are a key component of the kinds of social change which may or may not transpire. ...
In this chapter, Elaine Unterhalter considers four brief moments in the history of the concept of ‘empowerment’ and links these with the capability approach. To ‘empower’ in a pessimistic sense dates to the English civil war and was initially used to describe the illicit exercise of authority on behalf of powerful actors. In the twentieth century, ‘empowerment’ came to be reframed optimistically to describe Black Power and liberation theology, and later a kind of solidarity and activism associated with the women’s movement. Since then the term has been increasingly criticised by feminists and social activists due to its co-optation by the status quo, which typically involves suppressing its transformative potential. Unterhalter draws on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony to help explain this process. But her main contribution is to show how three conceptual links with the capability approach (along with reflexive comparative education) can bolster the notion of empowerment by helping to ensure that it continues to engage with equality and social justice. The three conceptual connections in question involve emphasising the importance of context and human diversity for articulating capabilities, stressing the role of human agency in promoting fairness and solidarity, and embracing deliberative democracy and participation for evaluative purposes.
... Only few of them use it for business capital [13,15,16]. For that reason, a movement is required to change their habit jointly [17][18][19]. ...
... There is no different relationship between female and male members of organization; there is equality in accessing information and capital. Former migrant women participate maximally in organizational activity, have equal right to the men, and no compulsion from any party in running entrepreneurship activity [13,18,27]. In establishing group business, they also have equal right in implementing joint activity without discrimination, thereby having an opportunity of implementing development in order to be independent and powerful and abandoning their adverse behavior [28]. ...
... Women's status is a multidimensional construct representing women's level of power, access, and resources within the contexts of relationships, families, communities, and societies (Tlapek 2014). It comprises how women are perceived and valued by themselves and others within these contexts which determines their capacity and state of self-governing and exerting power in their lives (Kishor and Subaiya 2008;Murphy-Graham 2012). Women's social and physical environments, as well as their intrapersonal characteristics, are strongly associated with women's status. ...
... Descriptive characteristics of 12-16-year-olds, Honduras, 2011-2012 ...
Maternal decision-making autonomy has been linked to positive outcomes for children’s health and well-being early in life in low- and middle-income countries throughout the world. However, there is a dearth of research examining if and how maternal autonomy continues to influence children’s outcomes into adolescence and whether it impacts other domains of children’s lives beyond health, such as their education. The goal of this study was to determine whether high maternal decision-making was associated with school enrollment for secondary school-aged youth in Honduras. Further, we aimed to assess whether the relationships between maternal autonomy and school enrollment varied by adolescents’ environmental contexts and individual characteristics such as gender. Our analytical sample included 6579 adolescents ages 12–16 living with their mothers from the Honduran Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2011–2012. We used stepwise logistic regression models to investigate the association between maternal household decision-making autonomy and adolescents’ school enrollment. Our findings suggest that adolescents, especially girls, benefit from their mothers’ high decision-making autonomy. Findings suggest that maternal decision-making autonomy promotes adolescents’ school enrollment above and beyond other maternal, household, and regional influences.
... Therefore, the limiting factor of education and the wider structural coercion against the empowerment of girls raise an issue regarding the quality and the content of education. Researchers Aikman and Unterhalter 2013 ;Goetz 2007 ;Monkman 2011 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ;Robeyns 2010a ;Unterhalter 2007a , b ) emphasise that a quality education requires gender equality and equity in guiding women to challenge traditional gender roles, norms and stereotypes. Assessing the quality of education should involve addressing questions of how schooling articulates labour market opportunities, how the media depicts gender, how women's exclusion inside and outside the school is addressed, and how the social, cultural, political and economic processes that cause gender discrimination in the public sphere and in labour markets are challenged (Aikman and Unterhalter 2013 ). ...
... What is needed even more than the equalisation of rights or the transformation of institutions is the capability improvement on the basis of human diversity, and a reciprocal relationship between social policy formulations, capabilities and agency (Sen 1999 As argued before, education can both reproduce and interrupt inequalities. The lives of the women in this book uphold the link between education and women's empowerment and agency (Alkire 2002 ;DeJaeghere and Lee 2011 ;Kabeer 1999 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ) and show how education played a critical role in expanding the capabilities and opportunities of women to live meaningful lives, providing an avenue for the cultivation of mind and processes of recognition, capacity building and action (Nussbaum 2003a ). Through education, they developed the capacity to make strategic life choices, enjoyed the agency to be in charge of their lives, had self-determination and confi dence and accessed employment opportunities. ...
This chapter conceptualises gender justice, drawing on the different perspectives of selected feminist political philosophers, who illuminate different approaches and conceptualisations to thinking about gender justice globally. The chapter leads into a discussion of gender equality in relation to education and then critically reviews the frameworks which offer a different understanding of gender equality in education. Lastly, I connect these discussions with the human development and capabilities perspective of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen and use the capabilities approach as an ‘umbrella’ gender justice approach to offer a normative and global framework. The chapter ends with a formulation of a capabilities list taking into account the socio-cultural/political context of Turkey and drawing from the empirical literature and research in a Turkish context.
... Therefore, the limiting factor of education and the wider structural coercion against the empowerment of girls raise an issue regarding the quality and the content of education. Researchers Aikman and Unterhalter 2013 ;Goetz 2007 ;Monkman 2011 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ;Robeyns 2010a ;Unterhalter 2007a , b ) emphasise that a quality education requires gender equality and equity in guiding women to challenge traditional gender roles, norms and stereotypes. Assessing the quality of education should involve addressing questions of how schooling articulates labour market opportunities, how the media depicts gender, how women's exclusion inside and outside the school is addressed, and how the social, cultural, political and economic processes that cause gender discrimination in the public sphere and in labour markets are challenged (Aikman and Unterhalter 2013 ). ...
... What is needed even more than the equalisation of rights or the transformation of institutions is the capability improvement on the basis of human diversity, and a reciprocal relationship between social policy formulations, capabilities and agency (Sen 1999 As argued before, education can both reproduce and interrupt inequalities. The lives of the women in this book uphold the link between education and women's empowerment and agency (Alkire 2002 ;DeJaeghere and Lee 2011 ;Kabeer 1999 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ) and show how education played a critical role in expanding the capabilities and opportunities of women to live meaningful lives, providing an avenue for the cultivation of mind and processes of recognition, capacity building and action (Nussbaum 2003a ). Through education, they developed the capacity to make strategic life choices, enjoyed the agency to be in charge of their lives, had self-determination and confi dence and accessed employment opportunities. ...
This chapter aims to pull together the key findings from the women’s experiences and insights concerning factors that supported them to become who they are or do what they value. Drawing on their experiences, I reflect on possible interventions that schools and policy-makers should consider to regulate gender-sensitive social policies and to create a more women-friendly society and school environment, and to establish gender justice both as an outcome and process. The chapter argues for the value of the capabilities framework and list to form road maps and solutions for gender justice and provide a new language for thinking about gender justice and education in Turkey while arguing for the universality of experiences described in this book. The chapter concludes by discussing limited understandings of freedom and development in Turkey based on legislation, and proposes a number of social, welfare and education policies for the development of women from a capabilities perspective.
... By and large, in both empowerment and capabilities literature, edu- cation is seen as a way to expand women's opportunities; to empower women; to improve women's rights; and-most importantly-to achieve gender equality. Education, however, does not always result in women's empowerment, due to the socio-economic context in which women's lives are situated (Murphy-Graham 2012 ), or to processes and norms and learning practices dominated by power and gender relations, histori- cal contradictions (Walker and Unterhalter 2007 ) and the dominant state ideologies. These processes may not always necessarily enhance freedoms, but may rather cause capability deprivation (Unterhalter 2003a ). ...
... As argued before, education can both reproduce and interrupt inequali- ties. The lives of the women in this book uphold the link between educa- tion and women's empowerment and agency (Alkire 2002 ;DeJaeghere and Lee 2011 ;Kabeer 1999 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ) and show how edu- cation played a critical role in expanding the capabilities and opportunities of women to live meaningful lives, providing an avenue for the cultiva- tion of mind and processes of recognition, capacity building and action (Nussbaum 2003a ). Through education, they developed the capacity to make strategic life choices, enjoyed the agency to be in charge of their lives, had self-determination and confi dence and accessed employment opportunities. ...
This chapter will take a closer look at Turkey’s past in terms of political, feminist and education history, to offer insight so that readers can better understand the emerging injustices and social conversion factors in different eras in women’s lives as well as in the history of Turkey. The chapter does not aspire to offer a detailed historical account, but rather to briefly present a historical context of the interviewees’ lives. The first part of the chapter presents the key historical events which help us to contextualise women’s lives within the three eras (The Republic period, 1923–1950; the multi-party democracy era, 1950–1980; contemporary times, from 1980 to present) examined in this book. The second part puts the lives of women into historical context and presents the ongoing and recent discussions on gender issues and equality in Turkey. It starts with the modernisation process, when feminism was under the control of the state, and then moves to the post-1980 feminist awakening in Turkey during which women broke the glass ceiling and started to voice their demands. Finally, it draws attention to the recent neo-liberal and neo-conservative policies which have reduced women’s status in society and increased their vulnerability. The third part offers and defines the key and problematic aspects of education—such as gender insensitive education or discriminatory aspects of education which enhance prejudices against some social groups and minorities (such as non-Muslims, Kurds, Greeks and Armenians).
... Feminist scholars also argue that the impact of education and labor market participation on gendered roles in the domestic sphere can be uneven as well as difficult to observe. As a result, the attention to study such changes, or lack of them, in the domestic sphere has not been as extensive as the focus on women's role in public spaces (Murphy-Graham, 2012;Sullivan, 2004). ...
... The lived experiences of the participants highlighted the uneven impact of education and labor market participation on the feminized domain of home (Hochschild, 1997;Murphy-Graham, 2012;Sullivan, 2004). The parhi likhi women experienced gender equality as they participated in male-dominated decisionmaking processes in their families. ...
Grounded in a gender equity perspective, this ethnography of educated women professionals from rural and low-income communities of Pakistan examines the impact of women's education on gender relations in the domestic sphere. The analysis shows how education can produce contested practices of gender equality through providing educated women access to new roles in public spaces while further integrating them in the domestic sphere. It questions the current emphasis on gender parity among international educational policies and projects as the key to empowering women. Instead of approaching gender equality as the ability of educated women to participate in public institutions, this article emphasizes the need to examine how education can reproduce certain gender hierarchies while transforming others in the domestic sphere.
... Todo ello a partir de los aprendizajes adquiridos, de tal forma que generen un cambio en su vida de manera crítica y consciente. Esto encajaría con las contribuciones de este modelo y otros modelos educativos sobre el empoderamiento y desarrollo de agencia de sus participantes (Hauver & Iverson, 2018;Jiménez-Millán et al., 2020;Murphy-Graham, 2012). No obstante, se reconoce que es una línea sobre la que se ha de seguir trabajando e investigando. ...
This study focuses on the implementation of a Critical Feminist Service-Learning project in an Outdoor Physical-Sport Activities course, part of the degree program in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences. Employing a qualitative case study approach, our aim is to understand the impact of this initiative on a group of women doctoral candidates (partners), undergraduate students, and professors. We collect data through in-depth interviews, participant observation, reflective journals, and associated resources. The findings suggest that professors play a key role in educational transformation, challenging paradigms, and promoting horizontal relationships. For undergraduate students, participating in the project offers a transformative experience, developing social and emotional skills linked to empathy in real-world educational environments and promoting the applicability of gender-sensitive practices. Doctoral candidates gain critical awareness of gender and body image in physical activity and sports, examine their vulnerabilities, and explore physical activity practices adaptable to their interests. Conclusions underscore the significance of integrating concrete actions addressing gender norms and stereotypes in Physical Activity and Sports, acknowledging temporal limitations, the need for long-term commitments, and overcoming institutional barriers when implementing Critical Feminist Service-Learning. Outdoor Physical-Sport Activities, when approached from this perspective, are an essential component, fostering mutual care and sustainable connections among its participants.
Este estudio se centra en la implementación de un proyecto de Aprendizaje-Servicio Crítico Feminista en la asignatura del Grado en Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte, denominada Actividades Físico-Deportivas en el Medio Natural. El objetivo fue comprender cómo estos proyectos generan impacto en un colectivo de doctorandas (copartícipes), estudiantes de grado y docentes.Para ello se utiliza una metodología cualitativa con estudio de casos. Los datos se recopilan mediante entrevistas en profundidad, observación participante, diarios reflexivos, y análisis de documentos. Los resultados indican que el profesorado emerge como agente clave para la transformación educativa, desafiando paradigmas y promoviendo relaciones horizontales. Para las estudiantes de grado, la participación en el proyecto implica una experiencia transformadora, desarrollando competencias sociales y emocionales relacionadas con la empatía en entornos reales y fomentando la aplicabilidad de prácticas sensibles al género. El colectivoque participa en el programa (alumnas de doctorado)experimentan una mayor conciencia crítica sobre género y corporalidad en actividad física, examinan sus vulnerabilidades y exploran prácticas de actividades físicas adaptables a sus vidas. Como conclusiones,sedestaca la integración de acciones concretas vinculadas a normas y estereotipos de género, atención a restricciones temporales, la necesidad de compromisos a largo plazo y la superación de resistencias institucionales. Las Actividades Físico-Deportivas en el Medio Natural,cuando se abordan desde este enfoque, son un componente esencial, propiciando cuidado mutuo y vínculos sostenibles entre sus participantes.
... No significant gender gap was seen in their statistics for admission to elite universities, suggesting that Chinese female students enjoy equal access to higher education. Yan showed, however, that rural women are 66% less likely than rural males to attend top-tier institutions (Massolo, 2002;Murphy-Graham, 2012). ...
... The skills acquired by girls in school create pathways to enhanced employment and health outcomes as they are socialized in competencies that enable them to communicate, engage and negotiate in a bureaucratic world (Sperling & Winthrop, 2015). Building the capacity to critically scrutinize oneself and one's community via formal education offer girls the ability to recognize inequality and strive toward social justice (Murphy- Graham, 2012). However, viewed from the African perspective, promoting girl child education in traditional Ghanaian society could create an empowered girl who feels powerless due to impediments that may obstruct her reintegration in to such social settings, the consequences being her inability to realize other social aspirations such as marriage, family life and social recognition. ...
Promoting female learning otherwise known as Girl Child Education continues to engage the attention of policy makers and practitioners in education and development generally; a situation greatly shaped by the myriad of obstacles militating against girl child education. In the current study, we probed the influence of CAMFED’s girl child education support scheme on school enrollment, retention and progression. We applied a reflexive evaluation approach anchored on a concurrent mixed methods research design in the study. Using a multistage sampling procedure, selected respondents were administered a combination of semi-structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews. We analyzed our data using multiple regression and descriptive statistics, supported by content analysis. The findings show that school enrollment and progression of the girl child increased substantially after the introduction of CAMFED’s intervention. However, gender-based perceptions continue to stifle girl child education, in spite of the behavior change component of the intervention scheme. The paper concludes that policy interventions should address the sociocultural bottlenecks inhibiting the education of the girl child if the gains made so far must be sustained. Going forward, studies could focus on measurement of performance as a function of girl child education support schemes beyond the basic level of education.
... This feature -linking life skills competencies to social change -is not commonly present in most work on life skills, particularly from the other two discourse communities. An explicit focus on social change -and the life skills needed to foster change processes -is a more recent feature of scholarship that is consistent with earlier work on education for youth empowerment (see DeJaeghere et al., 2016;Murphy-Graham, 2012). ...
Drawing from a review of theoretical, methodological, and empirical literature on life skills from the fields of education, public health, psychology, economics, and international development, this paper attempts to clarify basic definitional and conceptual issues that relate to life skills education. It addresses the questions: (1) What are life skills, and how has the term emerged in academic and donor agency literature? And (2) What bodies of practice and research evidence converge in the rise of ‘life skills’ programming and increased interest in ‘life skills’ among thought leaders and donors in the field of international education? The paper identifies implications from this analysis to be considered in research and interventions that focus on life skills for adolescents, particularly in light of global efforts to improve the quality of education.
... Furthermore, it recognizes that education can either work to reproduce or change social structures and norms that create inequalities. The transformative component of social learning is oriented toward creating equitable and just ways for all to live a good life (e.g., Murphy-Graham, 2012). This use of transformative social learning calls attention to how we think about and teach life skills relationally as well as the outcomes desired from learning them. ...
This chapter examines how life skills education draws on a dominant individualistic behavioral approach that aims to teach skills to young people so they can overcome various social and economic problems. Life skills are taught to girls so that they can be empowered to overcome health issues, such as HIV/AIDs or early pregnancy. They are also targeted at boys who are deemed ‘at risk’ of engaging in asocial behaviors in efforts to reduce violence and to contribute to the economy. Yet many of these societal problems are linked to changing social, economic and environmental relations. To think differently about how to use life skills to foster a good life that is just, equitable, and sustainable, the chapter offers a transformative framing based in a critical and relational approach. Such an approach requires a reframing of skills to consider the values and perspectives that are often implicitly taught, such as individual responsibility and self-promotion, and to reorient these skills around values that youth desire and need within their challenging contexts. It concludes with a discussion of some common life skills and how they can be reframed to achieve transformation in society so youth can live life well – oriented toward greater justice, equality and peace.
... They develop the capacity to critically examine their lives and broader society and take action toward personal and social transformation" (Murphy- Graham, 2012) As life skills in adolescent girls are likely to evolve out of constructive processing of information, encounters and experiences, enhancing social, emotional, ethical and independent living skills should be predominantly emphasized during their empowerment (Dowd, 2005).The transitional period of adolescent development is characterized by psychological turmoil; a period of 'storm and stress' (Hall, 1925), a period of lower self-control and higher sensitivity. Providing a supportive environment by imparting skills education to adolescents in this phase of life can usher an innovative conceptual shift in the thinking that women problems are the hurdles to women empowerment into women empowerment is the most efficient strategy to solve their problems (Pittman and Fleming, 1991). ...
... Furthermore, women are agents of reproduction and procreation, this places them at a position of life blood of the entire humanity [1]. According to the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) 2005, Education strengthens the wellbeing of women and creates an opportunity for them to air their voices in household decisions and have better opportunities to participate in the labour market and community as a whole [2]. Sufficient evidences from the 21 st century have proven that women have the capacity of holding and managing key leadership positions in the economy for sustainable development [3]. ...
This study examines the role of Education in women empowerment for effective participation in National Development. Education is a very important tool in improving the status of women in any society. It is indispensable as it enables women to gain Knowledge about the world which helps women upgrade their status, gain positive self-esteem, self-confidence, and necessary strength needed to face challenges in life. Therefore, educated women have a vital role to play in governance, agricultural sector, industrial sector, and the commerce sector for the nations building. Although Nigeria women are faced daily with some grassroots challenges that have hindered their participation in the nations building. The challenges faced by women daily which have limited their contributions to the development of Nigerian economy includes; cultural and traditional belief system, religion, illiteracy and low standard of living. The study concluded that, across the country women access to education is still low as the gender disparity in the enrolment of women into all level of educational institutions has widened over the years. To bridge this gap, the government should as a matter of urgency create and implement policies capable of promoting gender balance in access to education across the country, by insisting on the enrolment of a higher percentage of girl child in schools from primary schools. The government should also create policies that can remove institutional and artificial barriers based on culture, religion and traditional considerations impeding women from contributing to economic development.
... Notable exceptions, which will be discussed in Chapter Two, include Vavrus (2003), Bajaj (2005), Bajaj and Pathmarajah, (2011), Murphy-Graham (2008; and Shah (2011). Still fewer studies have explored this process longitudinally by following the same young women over time as Seeberg (2011), Murphy-Graham (2012) and Shifting attention from female empowerment toward schooling itself, the push to ensure girls have access to schooling has, as of late, given way to a focus on gender equity and increasing educational quality within and through schooling. This shift has been in response to a combination of increased access to school for girls worldwide and the growing focus on girls' and women's empowerment alongside evidence of persistent gendered inequalities as measured by a variety of global indicators. ...
In this dissertation, I explore the interplay of education and empowerment as it is lived by seven young Tanzanian women and developed at a unique all-girls’ secondary school in Tanzania. Drawing on interviews and participant observation from eight trips over four years, this study offers a longitudinal, ethnographic exploration of the school, Sasema Secondary School for Girls, to explore the rationale and production of curricula, pedagogies and practices that draw on global, national and local notions of empowerment and education. This study illuminates the tensions, vulnerabilities, feats and aspirations in young women’s lives through employing a life history approach focusing on three young women’s complete life histories. It examines the role that schooling has played, and has not played, in what these women describe as a contingent movement from vulnerability toward increasing security and well-being. This dissertation advances two main arguments: First, by exploring the practices and pedagogies at Sasema that young women have found to be valuable in their lives both at and beyond school, it demonstrates the significance of, and possibilities for, emotional and social learning through schooling while underscoring the importance of care in schools. As such, this research reinforces calls to conceptualize educational quality beyond the metrics of academic knowledge or vocational skills, traditionally thought of as schooling’s raison d’être, toward more holistic notions of education for the whole person. Second, this study complicates and adds nuance to accepted notions of empowerment through education by offering deeply contextualized portraits of young women’s lives as they understand them to be unfolding. Although empowerment is frequently analyzed in
economic or political terms, this work reveals that, for these young women, empowerment is also profoundly psychosocial and even corporeal. Furthermore, additional forces, such as family, religion and community, are at play in their notions of processes that advance their well-being and the well-being of others. As such, this study reveals disjunctures between empowerment through education as it lived by young women in Tanzania and as discussed by scholars of international development, education and gender.
... Some programmes also expose girls to role models -women who have forged their own life paths, often overcoming significant barriers to do so (Marcus et al. forthcoming;Marcus and Harper 2014). Likewise, the well-recognised disempowerment of girls has led feminist educationalists to advocate forms of schooling that help girls develop confidence and skills (Murphy-Graham and Lloyd 2015;Murphy-Graham 2012;Mlama et al. 2005). With greater capabilities for voice and agency, girls are in a stronger position to challenge discriminatory norms and to dislodge stereotypes about girls' poor decision-making capacity -not just in a localised environment or in relation to a single issue but over a wide range of norms and over the longer term. ...
... The personally transformative nature of education emerges strongly from the country case studies and from wider literature on education and women's empowerment (Marcus and Page 2016;Unterhalter et al. 2014;Murphy-Graham 2012). As one of the young women we interviewed in Viet Nam put it, 'Now I can't imagine what I would have become without going to school'. ...
... Empowerment has been described as a concept of acknowledging who is capable of taking a decision (Naz, 2006), being able to manage their own lives with their own strategies (Young, 1993), with freedom to take their own decisions and acquire the ability to handle different life problems (Rowland, 1997). Murphy (2008) identifies three components of women's empowerment: self-awareness, understanding, and recognition. These components are the results of educational processes that make women more self-confident, self-possessed, and decisive (Maslak & Singhal, 2008). ...
The empowerment of women is an essential objective to fully engage them in economic life and achieve sustainable growth throughout the world. Providing basic facilities to women is one form of empow-erment. This paper examines the extent of women's empowerment in Punjab, Pakistan and its divisions, along with rural and urban regions. In addition, we check the effect of the gender wage differential on the current dilemma by implementing Alkire et al.'s [2013.The women's empowerment in agriculture index (Working Paper No. 58). Oxford, UK: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. Retrieved from https://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ophi-wp-58.pdf.] indexing on HIES 2013-14 datasets. Our results show that 34.91% of women are empowered in Punjab overall, with independence being the highest dimensional contributor, and ownership of assets being the least. Women are 31.43% more empowered in urban regions. The results indicate that Islamabad has significantly more women's empowerment, while Dera Ghazi Khan has the lowest percentage of empowered women. To assess particular impacts of different socioeconomic and demographic variables on women's empowerment, logistic regression model is applied, revealing that most socioeconomic and demographic variables have significant impacts on the current scenario, and variation in any variable causes significant variations in the status of women's empowerment, with increased wage differential in particular, decreasing the probability of women being empowered. ARTICLE HISTORY
... The unemployment rate in Indonesia is high due to a limited job opportunity, but the number of productive age populations increases, so that the poverty rate increases as well. The gap insocial life can be dealt with community empowerment [1]- [3]. Every member of society contributes to improving economic and wellbeing levels, thereby competitive in getting a job. ...
... In the summer of 2015, Claudia was invited to Cornell University to speak about CCFC's environmental education program at the Lab of Ornithology BirdSleuth Educators conference. Her development provides compelling evidence of the recognition and action components of empowerment advocated by Murphy-Graham (2012). The young women who participate in WALC clearly appreciate the process of learning through the program and its tangible benefits in their lives. ...
Programs to keep young women in school across the developing world have become widespread. Education is key to improving their quality of life, but keeping them in school is a significant challenge. This article examines a scholarship program that provides 25 days of intensive leadership training for young indigenous women using a peer tutorial system. The program offers a unique experience, a variety of practical training, opportunities for personal growth, and evidence of empowerment. This study demonstrates that social change is occurring and that young women are promoting change in their own lives, as well as those of their families and communities.
... Education has been found to be a crucial intervention in challenging the reproduction of socially determined gender roles (e.g. Munoz Boudet et al. 2013;Murphy-Graham 2012). However, the experiences of the participants in this study are ambiguous, both showing the expansion of opportunities afforded by higher education, but also its limits in addressing (or understanding) socially embedded gender norms and resulting discriminatory behaviours. ...
... Education has been found to be a crucial intervention in challenging the reproduction of socially determined gender roles (e.g. Munoz Boudet et al. 2013;Murphy-Graham 2012). However, the experiences of the participants in this study are ambiguous, both showing the expansion of opportunities afforded by higher education, but also its limits in addressing (or understanding) socially embedded gender norms and resulting discriminatory behaviours. ...
... I suggest that teacher training programmes offer a more global perspective to highlight successful initiatives around the world to inspire critical reflection and action. Practices and initiatives from resource-poor and post-conflict societies (Apple 2010;Lazar 2010;Murphy-Graham 2012) could inspire teachers to recognise their potential roles as educators to foster social change. By learning from cross-cultural studies, teachers may identify the ways in which they can motivate the next generation of citizens to demand and create a better world. ...
South Africa has risen to the forefront of educational debates that claim schooling can promote social justice and social cohesion. By drawing on Freire’s (1970) theory of critical pedagogy, this paper examines how South African teachers in rural and township schools encourage students to reflect critically upon their own lives and take action to improve issues of inequality, violence, and insecurity. It argues that teachers understand their roles as agents of social change primarily as encouraging respect, morality, and racial reconciliation among learners. The ways in which the youth take up the teachers’ efforts to promote change depends upon how the teachers’ practices speak to the students’ own life circumstances. When the youth relate to the teachers’ life stories and course material, they engage in the process of moral translation. In other words, the youth rework their lessons into ideas of how they should behave as moral human beings. Yet, frequently young South Africans do not learn a morality based on a Freirean notion of social justice – a seemingly central component to the national curriculum – but instead a morality based on individualised notions of personal responsibility and hope for a better future. The paper concludes with several suggestions to improve educational practices for social justice.
... What is needed even more than the equalisation of rights or the transformation of institutions is the capability improvement on the basis of human diversity, and a reciprocal relationship between social policy formulations, capabilities and agency (Sen 1999 As argued before, education can both reproduce and interrupt inequalities. The lives of the women in this book uphold the link between education and women's empowerment and agency (Alkire 2002 ;DeJaeghere and Lee 2011 ;Kabeer 1999 ;Murphy-Graham 2012 ) and show how education played a critical role in expanding the capabilities and opportunities of women to live meaningful lives, providing an avenue for the cultivation of mind and processes of recognition, capacity building and action (Nussbaum 2003a ). Through education, they developed the capacity to make strategic life choices, enjoyed the agency to be in charge of their lives, had self-determination and confi dence and accessed employment opportunities. ...
The introduction sets the scene for the study and briefly presents the rationale and aims of the book. It focuses on current debates on gender, education and development, and problematises the contested definitions of gender justice, drawing on the work of Naila Kabeer, Nelly Stromquist and Ramya Subrahmanian to develop a conception of empowerment in relation to gender and social justice literature, and presents an overview of the capabilities approach. Then, it introduces the Turkish context in relation to issues of gender and education and teases out how the capabilities approach coupled with feminist theories can offer a better understanding of gender and education in Turkey and be used to make recommendations to policy-makers in order to improve social and educational policies. Lastly, a short overview of feminist methodology on ways to reach women’s voices is presented and the key arguments that unfold in the book are stated and explained.
This article examines how the distinction between complicated and complex education systems contributes to our understanding of global governance and how “soft power” concerned with gender is used in international development organisations’ responses to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, the global goal for education. Four global governance approaches which shape these organisations are distinguished: partnership building, gender mainstreaming, gender activism and contestation by global feminist movements. These strands of soft power have implications for how meanings of gender, education, power and accountability are interpreted. The work of three organisations – the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the Gender at the Centre Initiative (GCI) and the Malala Fund – are reviewed to exemplify these global governance approaches. The analysis draws on a close reading of the organisations’ published documents to build a history of how the gender concerns of SDG 4 came to be interpreted, negotiated, contested or ignored. The activities of the three organisations show considerable interplay between concepts of complicated and complex education systems. The discussion raises questions regarding what kind of work soft power in gender and education does in a context of huge and growing global inequalities and insecurities. In addition, the question is posed why there is still no institutional base to articulate a global feminist politics which confronts and seeks to dismantle unjust structures of power.
The study analyses the antecedents of employee retention using a structural equation modelling. Healthcare professionals are critical in the provision of the health sector, particularly nurses who are very valuable to the organisations since they are the ones who provide firsthand service to the patients, it is important to ensure that skilled nurses are retained and the voluntary turnover among them is managed properly. There were 189 sets of questionnaire randomly distributed to the healthcare professionals in hospitals. The questionnaire consists of 100 items with fixed alternative construct questions. The respondents were asked to rate the questions in five point Likert scaling method which allows respondents to understand the questions clearly. The study found that 67% of employee retention is resultant of job involvement, organisational citizenship behaviour, people management practices, organisation loyalty, and employee empowerment. This study provides ample evidences from literature about the predictors of employee retention and provides an empirical base to induce employee retention in hospitals.
This study aims to explore gender inequality using spatial panel data models and take a step forward in adopting such a comprehensive approach to identify and estimate the factors driving gender inequality in European countries. The analysis utilizes panel data covers 41 European countries spanning the period from 1990 to 2020. By employing spatial panel data models, the study accounts gender inequality by mainly considering unobserved effects and various other factors, including social, economic, human rights, and environmental degradation. The findings reveal that spatial effects play a significant role in gender inequality, as evidenced by the Gender Inequality Index heatmap and the Moran's I spatial autocorrelation test. Among the panel data regression models estimate to spatial effects, the FE-SAC model is determined to be the most efficient and consistent based on various model selection criteria. The main results show that life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling, and democracy index have decreasing effects on gender inequality, whereas CO 2 emissions per capita have increasing effects. Ultimately, the study concludes that gender equality is linked to unobserved effects such as the same culture, beliefs, and values which are main reasons of spatial effects.
Empowerment programs for women have been key development initiatives toward achieving gender equality. Projects, models, and measurement tend to focus on resources and agency as core to empowerment. Missing from most models and research is women’s own aspirations, or what they value for their futures, that affect how women use their resources and agency to achieve wellbeing. Aspirations are central to a sense of a good life and are necessary to strengthen among poor communities, but they are often overlooked among women, particularly those who are not pursuing formal schooling and who work in informal labor. This paper examines how aspirations matter for women in poverty who are working in informal sectors (agriculture and tourism) in Vietnam. It argues that without examining women’s aspirations for themselves, their family, and community, development projects may miss achieving their outcomes because they are not valued by women. Using data from the abbreviated version of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI), and qualitative interview data from women and men from minority ethnic groups in Vietnam, we show that women and men achieve similar rates of adequacy in their access to resources and decision-making as measured by the A-WEAI, and that women’s aspirations for themselves and their community emphasized other valued outcomes from projects aimed at economic empowerment.
The issue of education for Muslim women has become central to many global discourses and policies focusing on Muslim countries. These paradigms present education for Muslim women as the solution to issues ranging from poverty to religious extremism. Embedded in these narratives is not only the image of Muslim women as oppressed victims of their culture, but also the image of Islam as a patriarchal religion. Education becomes an instrument to empower these women through enabling them to challenge their “oppressive” cultural and Islamic traditions. In other words, education becomes a site, tool, and institution to arrange the empowerment of Muslim women against their families, communities, and Islam.
Millions Learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries tells the story of where and how quality education has scaled in low- and middle-income countries. The story emerges from wide-ranging research on scaling and learning, including 14 in-depth case studies from around the globe. Ultimately, Millions Learning finds that from the slums of New Delhi to the rainforest in Brazil, transformational change in children’s learning is happening at large scale in many places around the world. We find that successful scaling of quality learning often occurs when new approaches and ideas are allowed to develop and grow on the margins and then spread to reach many more children and youth.
Purpose of the study: The empowerment of women is an important aim for them to be fully engaged in economic life and to achieve sustainable growth worldwide. One form of empowerment is to provide women with basic facilities. Methodology: The study also analyzed the impact on women's empowerment by primary data taken via multi-phase cluster sampling methods of household socioeconomic and cultural characteristics in Punjab. Given the diversity of nature and context, the 6-dimensional empirical polychoric principles of empowering women generate a stringent cumulative index of women's autonomy. Main Findings: The empirical findings show that empowering women and their six-dimensional effects are positive for women's years and jobs, legal advertisements, health care institutions, social participation, safe, smooth surroundings, communication, politics and residential negative participation, unpaid housekeeping, and the fear of violence. The results show that women's empowerment is positive. Applications of this study: This study can be more effective in the manner that to offer women free advice about their rights through electronic media, the government should establish an integrated legal cell with the local government. Novelty/Originality of this study: This research contribution in the field of women empowerment that how women can deal with legal advisory, to get jobs, protection in health and institutions.
This handbook surveys the central theories in comparative and international education (CIE). Each chapter includes an overview of the theory including its history and development, references to examples where the theory has been applied in CIE research and practice, and suggestions for further reading. Written by leading scholars from the USA, the UK, China, Canada, Germany, Australia, Denmark, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden this is must-have reference work for those studying CIE.
The handbook includes chapters on: Structuralism, Colonialism/Imperialism, Marxism, Modernization/Human Capital Theory, World System Theory, Post-Colonialism, Post-Modernism / Post-Structuralism, Post-Socialism/Post-communism/Post-authoritarianism, Feminism/Gender, Post-Foundationalism, Neo-Colonialism and Southern Turn Theory, Neo-liberalism, Neo-Institutionalism, Neo-Marxism, Neo-Realism, Policy Borrowing and Lending and Educational Transfer, Peace Theories, Human Rights, Critical Pedagogy, Transitologies, Actor Network Theory, Communication Theory, Social Network Theory, Capabilities Theory, Cultural Political Economy and Regime Theory.
Aims and objectives
Despite considerable interest in second language (L2) relative clauses (RCs)—one of the most difficult grammatical structures to learn—and in learner agency, few research efforts have been made to investigate how the latter informs the acquisition of the former. The current study looks at a native-like adult L2 Korean learner’s comprehension/production of Korean RCs and the trajectory of his acquisition of the RCs.
Methodology
The research instruments consisted of RC comprehension/production tasks and autobiographic interviews.
Data and analysis
The L2 learner’s responses in the comprehension task and those in the production task (audio-recorded) were reviewed for their accuracy. The processes of analyzing the interview data involved labeling themes/concepts forming from the data and interlinking categories to create larger, more general categories.
Findings
The results indicated that the L2 learner’s performance on the tasks was native-like, and that he had actively exercised his learner agency which had dynamically interacted with context to achieve such native-likeness.
Originality
This study distinguishes itself from the few previous studies on exceptional adult L2 learners by focusing on grammatical competence in relation to agency.
Significance
The current interpretive study—which used autobiographical interviews to examine the dynamic trajectory of L2 RC acquisition—indicates the importance of an L2 learner’s agency.
This chapter explores the development of youth agency and its relationship to community transformation by focusing on the Preparation for Social Action (PSA) program, an educational program developed by a Colombian NGO, FUNDAEC. Correa and Murphy-Graham draw on qualitative data from a study conducted in 2014 to describe how students develop a sense of agency and how this becomes a catalyst for individual and community change. The authors focus their findings around two elements of the program: How students begin taking action in small and concrete steps through community service and the use of individual and collective reflection exercises that allow for greater self-awareness.
The Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) and Vision 2030 is a thought provoking issue after un-accomplishment of MDGs 2015. This study was conducted by considering goal 5 of SDG vision 2030 about Empowering Women and girls in the perspectives of Education. The design of the study was descriptive in nature. A sample was selected in three different regions of Punjab (south, central and upper). A stratified random sampling technique was used to collect a proportionate sample size of 600 educated and uneducated women to collect data for the study. Data was collected by questionnaire, and focus group discussions. The results were collected using SPSS version 16 and inferential conclusions were made by content analysis. The main objective of the study was to identify the factors which play a pivotal role in empowering women and girls through education. The findings of the study revealed that the factors which riveted educated and uneducated women were different and varies by the area of Punjab they belong. Factors which affected the women of Rural South Punjab were ignorance and poverty, patriarchal thinking and the caste system. In Rural Central Punjab and the Rural Upper Punjab women were confronting economic status and gender discrimination in their inclination towards Education and Empowerment. Therefore it was concluded that Education may act as a vector to awareness, equity and equality for girls and women in their transformative process of empowerment and sustainable development of a country. The beneficiaries of the study are educated and uneducated women, stake holders, Policy makers and the future researcher.
Governments in sub-Saharan Africa face increasing pressure to educate young people through secondary school, supposedly equipping them with knowledge and skills for employment and their future. At the same time, many youths do not complete their education and there are insufficient jobs to employ graduates. The development community sees entrepreneurship education as one viable solution to the double edged problem of inadequate education and few jobs. But while entrepreneurship education is aligned with a governing rationality of neoliberalism that requires individuals to create their own livelihoods without government social supports, the two NGO programs discussed in this book draw on a rights-based discourse that seeks to educate those not served by government schools, providing them with educational and social supports to be included in society. The chapters explore the tensions that occur when international organizations and NGOs draw on both neoliberal and liberal human rights discourses to address the problems of poverty, unemployment and poor quality education. Furthermore, when these neo/liberal perspectives meet local ideas of reciprocity and solidarity, they create friction and alter the programs and effects they have on youth. The book introduces the concept of entrepreneurial citizens-those who utilize their innovative skills and behaviors to claim both economic and social rights from which they had been previously excluded. The programs taught youth how to develop their own enterprises, to earn profits, and to save for their own futures; but youth used their education, skills and labor to provide for basic needs, to be included in society, and to support their and their families' well-being. By showing the contradictory effects of entrepreneurship education programs, the book asks international agencies and governments to consider how they can go beyond technical approaches of creating enterprises and increasing income, and head toward approaches that consider the kinds of labor that young people and communities value for their wellbeing. This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of education and international development, youth studies, African Studies and entrepreneurship/social entrepreneurship education.
This introductory chapter to the volume sets out the differing conceptualizations of youth agency and the role that education plays in fostering or constraining agency. The adjective of youth adds particular import to the concept of agency because it is a social and physiological construct reflecting both age and critical junctures and affects how they imagine themselves and enact their identities in relation to peers, family, schooling, and society. The chapter considers and critiques various perspectives of agency, attempting to move beyond the binary of the individually agentic person or the vulnerable youth toward a conceptualization of agency as socially embedded and constructed. It considers agency as not only holding beliefs or taking action, but also as imagining valued futures, and responding to one's social, cultural, and economic environments.
This chapter explores the ways in which youth in Nairobi, Kenya shape their livelihood trajectories upon obtaining vocational training. In a setting where schooling does not always adequately prepare youth for the workforce and youth face high unemployment rates, Kenyan youth need to seek out alternative opportunities that enable them to secure income-generating activities. In recent years, both governmental and nongovernmental initiatives have emerged to train youth in vocational and entrepreneurial skills and relevant knowledge in an effort to facilitate their entry into and movement within the economic marketplace. Using concepts of agency, including everyday agency, and empowerment this chapter explores how youth engage with the skills they have learned, along with new notions of self, to navigate their opportunities in the marketplace and make decisions about their livelihoods. The chapter also examines the social and economic realities that influence youths’ livelihood opportunities and decisions.
This chapter investigates the ways youth employed their agency to resist, transgress, and undo traditional gender norms within their homes and communities. Building on the gender, education, and development literature, the ethnographically informed case study followed 19 young men and women in two peri-urban areas outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras as they contested and negotiated their response to the gendered expectations that family, friends, and community members had for them as young women and young men. The chapter delves into the experiences of Arianna, Milton, and the Sport and Culture subcommittee of the CARE youth program as they negotiated aspects of their gender, and understanding of gender equity. The youth’s self-described ways in which their agency was enacted in quotidian life provides insights on local-level change, which occurred through individual and group action, and how their agency affected gender norms within home and community spaces.
This article proposes a conceptual framework for how education can promote adolescent girls’ empowerment and, by mapping the field, highlights promising examples of empowering education programs. We conclude by identifying both research and programmatic opportunities for the future that will harness the expertise of a range of specialists from the interdisciplinary fields of gender studies and adolescent development in collaboration with experts from the fields of education, health, and labor.
Based on Martha Nussbaum’s list of central human functional capabilities, this chapter is an empirical study of the links between education and the development of girls’ and women’s capabilities in Bangladesh. The study arises from the expansion of girls’ education in Bangladesh; the widespread assumption that education helps lead to empowerment (which I take to be the development of capabilities); the claim by some that Bangladesh has already achieved the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of the empowerment of women, and the evidence indicating otherwise. Through interviews with adolescent girls about what going to school and “being educated” means to them, there is an exploration of which capabilities are enhanced by the educational process in Bangladesh, and which are not. I argue that education cannot be regarded as a basic capability unless it specifically addresses the process of developing the capabilities necessary to live a life one has reason to value.
As human pressures on the environment increase and as conflicting demands on education become focused, schools have a greater responsibility to educate children to care for their environment. Results from this study demonstrated that students who were involved in the actual propagation and restoration of ecosystems, and who had positive experiences in doing so, were more likely to have positive environmental attitudes.
Background/Context
In contrast to cultural constructs that equate education with cognitive development and formal schooling, the Latin American cultural model of educación encompasses academic knowledge and social competence. Prior scholarship has mainly investigated parental notions of educación vis-à-vis childrearing and schooling, primarily among Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. Analysis of educación should include other nationalities and elucidate how adults believe educación is acquired and linked both to schooling and nonformal adult education and literacy.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study
The purpose of this article is to explicate how former adult literacy participants in rural El Salvador perceived the meanings of educación, how one becomes an educated person, and how educación relates to schooling and literacy.
Setting
The study took place in a Salvadoran village where, in 2001, a nongovernmental organization sponsored an adult literacy program. Like other poor, rural Salvadorans, participants had limited access to schooling and literacy.
Research Design
Employing ethnographic, participatory methods, the original study (2001-02) examined how adult literacy education fostered or hindered women and men's empowerment. The 2007 follow-up study utilized eight interviews and one focus group with 12 of 17 learners (8 women, 4 men) who had attended literacy classes in one of the villages.
Findings/Results
Participants identified four facets of educación. First, speech included knowing how to express oneself; converse in a friendly, respectful manner; and use socially appropriate language. Second, educated persons were perceived to display respeto (respect) in language and conduct, especially toward elders and parents. Third, manners and comportment encompassed such practices as attending to guests and demonstrating good behavior (e.g., child obedience). Finally, participants believed that educated persons treat and interact with others in a kind, pleasant, friendly manner. Participants posited multiple pathways to becoming educado (educated, well-mannered), namely, parental instruction and modeling, teacher instruction and schooling, instruction by their former adult literacy teacher or researcher, social interaction, and individual effort. Paradoxically, participants viewed educación as simultaneously learned and innate. Lastly, learners believed that educación did not depend on schooling and literacy, yet these could cultivate educación by increasing one's exposure to, and understanding of, written messages and teachers’ oral instruction concerning respectful, appropriate conduct.
Conclusions/Recommendations
With its emphasis on communicative competence, respect, and proper relatedness, Salvadoran participants’ cultural model of education closely resembles that of other Latino groups. By foregrounding the relational and moral dimensions of education and human development, this model shapes the perceived purposes and desired outcomes of schooling and adult education, the symbolic meanings attached to education, expectations of educators, and the insights learners derive from educational activities.
Ensuring the education of marginalized children has become an important agenda in order to reach the goals of universal primary education and gender equality. Education policies and projects aiming to target marginalized children often do so on the basis of demographic variables, such as sex, ethnicity, poverty and geography. We argue that this approach to defining marginality does not sufficiently address underlying discriminatory conditions and norms that perpetuate inequalities. In this article, we employed a capabilities approach as an analytical frame to understand what girls and boys in a rural district in Bangladesh reason affects their educational well-being and empowerment. We draw on critical feminist perspectives of empowerment to illustrate how gendered inequalities are perpetuated in the structures and norms in communities and schools. We argue that specific conditions can differentially marginalize or empower, and these conditions have persistent gendered patterns. Conditions of a safe, supportive, and quality educational environment foster possibilities for empowerment and well-being, and conversely, a lack of these conditions can marginalize children from achieving well-being through education.
Western-liberal discourses of power and the social practices associated with them are proving inadequate to the task of creating a peaceful, just, and sustainable social order. Having recognized this, progressive scholars and social reformers have begun articulating alternative discourses of power, along with alternative models of social practice. Together, these efforts can be interpreted as a project of discourse intervention - an effort to change our social reality by altering the discourses that help constitute it. In order to advance this project, this paper deconstructs the dominant Western-liberal discourse of power, clarifies elements of an alternative discourse of power, and presents a case study of an alternative discourse community and the alternative models of social practice that it is constructing.
Women’s status in the Western world has improved enormously, but the revolution that would make women and men truly equal has not yet occurred. I argue that the reason is that gender divisions still deeply bifurcate the structure of modern society. Feminists want women and men to be equal, but few talk about doing away with gender divisions altogether. From a social constructionist structural gender perspective, it is the ubiquitous division of people into two unequally valued categories that undergirds the continually reappearing instances of gender inequality. I argue that it is this gendering that needs to be challenged by feminists, with the long-term goal of doing away with binary gender divisions altogether. To this end, I call for a feminist degendering movement.
This article uses ethnographic research to examine how women and men in rural El Salvador used literacy classes to accomplish their own social purposes. Employing a sociocultural, feminist framework, the author argues that men and women valued classes as an opportunity for social interaction. Moreover, the classes were a gendered social space that helped women to relieve isolation and men to spend their time purposefully and “avoid vices” like drinking. These needs were rooted in gender relations (an inequitable gender division of labor, the restriction of female mobility, the sanctioning of drinking as masculine behavior) and socioeconomic conditions (unemployment, postwar social fragmentation). Attending classes allowed learners to construct identities that challenged dominant conceptions of gender. The article proposes that serving the human longing for affiliation is a legitimate, essential role of adult education. It concludes by suggesting ways to analyze and support social interaction in adult and literacy education.
Based on ethnographic research in rural El Salvador and drawing on New Literacy Studies (NLS) and gender and development (GAD) literature, this article examines how participation in a Freirean-inspired literacy programme fostered and/or limited women's and men's personal, interpersonal and collective empowerment. The findings reveal that participation planted seeds of agency and generated numerous psychosocial benefits such as enhanced self-esteem and expansion of social networks, yet it did not lead to collective empowerment or increased gender equity. This suggests that literacy education is a necessary yet insufficient basis for ameliorating entrenched social and gender hierarchies. Nevertheless, the psycho-social benefits identified by learners enhanced their human capabilities, corresponded to needs rooted in the social context (e.g. postwar social fragmentation) and helped lay a foundation for future collective action. Additionally, the article attributes the programme's limited influence on women's and men's collective empowerment to both programmatic and contextual factors.
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. (Huntington, 1993, p. 22) Addressing these challenges of globalization will require making citizenship education and the development of global values an explicit objective of efforts to improve quality throughout the world, critically examining theories and evidence about the effectiveness of various approaches to developing citizenship and global citizenship and supporting activities aligned with this public purpose. This public purpose should support the development of a political culture that fosters the
This article considers contemporary policy claims about “what literacy is” and “what literacy does.” First, the article reviews in-depth the ways in which development discourses define literacy, and the claims made in development discourses about the “consequences” of literacy for economic and political development. I then draw on 24 months of ethnographic research in Brazil with 41 highly impoverished literacy students from four literacy programs in two cities in order to demonstrate that there is no predictable “impact” of literacy on development. Instead, I show that the opportunities afforded by literacy depend greatly on the types of literacy and the types of literacy programs made available to students, as well as students’ cultural understandings of literacy and the social, political, and economic contexts within which they attempt to assert new literacy practices. The article concludes that we should not consider literacy as an actor with some “impact”; instead, we should examine how people use literacy in ways that are conditioned by social and cultural forces.
Nussbaum defends literacy and education for women as a crucial condition for lessening many of the problems that women face worldwide, such as abusive marriages, inadequate jobs, and poor health, which restrict women's capacities to engage in citizenship practices. Nussbaum's proposal extends to secondary and higher education and particularly urges the development of women's critical faculties and imagination. At present, the commitments of poorer nations and states, as well as those of wealthy nations, their citizens, and their corporations are woefully inadequate to serve women's needs. Female education is sometimes opposed on the grounds that it destroys nonliterate cultures, which have their own values; yet such cultures may harbor misery and injustice and their norms may even be opposed by the women in the cultures. Nussbaum suggests that if governments cannot improve female education, non-governmental organizations may be able to take on the responsibility.
This article deepens the understanding of the impact empowerment programs have for women on their social environment, and more specifically on the men in the community, who may or may not be supportive of such endeavors. Gathering evidence from one case in rural India, it addresses how powerholders and gatekeepers reacted to the increased use of women's voices as they interacted as members of a group, within the broader community, and as the women recognized their own increase in value to the community.
ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. teamwork skills, self-understanding, leadership, deci-sion-making skills, communication, volunteerism SUMMARY. The goal of this study was to assess changes in the life skill develop-ment of elementary school students participating in a 1-year school garden program. The Life Skills Inventory included statements for six constructs of life skills including teamwork, self-understanding, leadership, decision making skills, communication skills, and volunteerism. The students were divided into two treatment groups, an experimental group that participated in the garden pro-gram and a control group that did not participate in the school garden program. Students in the control group had signifi cantly higher overall life skills scores on the pretest compared to students participating in the garden program but the scores were no longer signifi cantly different between the groups on the posttest scores at the end of the program. In addition, there were no signifi cant differ-ences in the control group's pretest scores compared to their posttest scores. However, the students in the experimental group did signifi cantly increase their overall life skills scores by 1.5 points after participating in the garden program. Two internal life skill scales were positively infl uenced by the garden program; "working with groups" and "self understanding." Acknowledgements: The authors express appreciation for the fi nancial support of the Kellogg Foundation.
This article analyzes Nancy Fraser's account of the contrasting social movements for recognition versus those for redistribution. In her most recent analysis, only those forms of recognition struggles that she equates with identity politics are subject to critique. I argue that identity politics does not have an inevitable logic to it that destines it to fracture, border patrol, internal conservatism, etc., and further that the very redistribution claims she proposes require identity politics.
In this article, Ruth Trinidad Galvan describes her ethnographic study with rural women and their communities in Central Mexico, as well as her affiliation with a grassroots popular education organization. The organizing mechanism of the small savings groups and the women's work and participation in them inspired a reconceptualization of ''pedagogy'' situated in the multiple subject positions and conditions of campesinas. The reconceptualization of ''pedagogy,'' thus stems from a womanist perspective as it is based on the socio-cultural and economic conditions affecting campesinas, and situated in a complex web of interpersonal relationships of the everyday. Trinidad Galvan, then, describes the organic pedagogical forms of spirituality, well-being and convivencia as interrelated modes of teaching and learning, knowledge creation and identity production. Her work with campesinas and exploration of womanist pedagogies further expand US knowledge of immigrant peoples' values and experiences, as well as the ways they live, learn and teach each other in the everyday.
In the aftermath of September 11 foreign aid has returned to the center of U.S. foreign policy. Most policymakers have approached the problems of failed or weak states—limited legitimacy, political instability, and religious terrorism or fundamentalism—by saying they are simply the result of incomplete modernization. However, this is a very misleading way to understand the global resurgence of religion. A global struggle for authenticity and development is taking place, and learning how to take cultural and religious pluralism seriously has become one of the most important aspects of foreign policy in the twenty-first century. This article examines how U.S. foreign aid policy can do this by assisting faith-based organizations help the churches, mosques, and temples in developing countries become the kind of "communities of character" that can generate the social capital that contributes to social change and development.
Wendy Tyndale looks at religious groups, movements or communities working at the grassroots, very often at a distance from the leaders or institutions of their traditions. She takes as examples movements which show the effectiveness of faith as an inspiration and guide for work to improve life for the poor. These are different from faith-based NGOs, which, depending as they do on sources of funding from the West, tend to be influenced to a greater degree by the views of professional western/secular development practitioners. She delves into some of the difficulties of the relationship between religion and the mainstream development thinking in order to show the commonalities of both idealism and pragmatism on both sides of the divide.Development (2003) 46, 2228. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1110486
This article explores the extent to which participation in alternative human values education affects students' conceptions of agency amidst the economic and HIV/AIDS crises in Ndola, Zambia. Drawing on the concept of transformative agency as developed by critical research in education, this study examines conceptions of agency based on data produced through interviews, focus groups and diaries given to pairs of siblings from lower to middle income families one of whom attended a government secondary school in Ndola and the other an alternative school run by a non‐governmental organization. This study found that transformative agency was enabled by alternative schooling that attempted to disrupt the reproductive tendencies of state schooling. After graduation, however, students were forced to renegotiate their sense of agency vis‐à‐vis the larger structural constraints of Zambian society. As such, the limits and possibilities of alternative pedagogy and school structure towards educational equity are analysed and discussed in relation to the field of international and comparative education.
In this article, the author draws on ethnographic research conducted in a village in southern West Bengal to present some of the ways in which people constructed the meanings and values they associated with schooling. The author argues that in people's words and worlds, schooling does not have straightforward, timeless, and consistent value and meaning. This is because schooling and the current institutionalized push for schooling through education for all interact with multiple social relations and experiences to produce new types of expectations, opportunities, and difficulties for parents and children and apparently new evaluations of sons and daughters. The article also discusses studies conceptualizing education as a "contradictory resource," opposite of empowerment, and gender empowerment itself as a tentative, uneven, and situational outcome of schooling while drawing on previous literature to support the argument. Next, the article highlights many of the region of Bengal's accomplishments and challenges in the educational sector in a context of growing informalization of work, unemployment, marital desertion, and violence against women. Finally, the author explores rural citizens' perspectives offstage and onstage for their constructions of security as embedded in commentaries and insights about the meaning and value of schooling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article aims to clarify the relationship between education and women's empowerment. Drawing from qualitative data collected in a study of four Garifuna villages on the north coast of Honduras, it argues that education can trigger the empowerment process if it expands women's knowledge and understanding, self-confidence and awareness of gender equity. However, not all education programs will do this. The program studied, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial, has several unique features that appear to foster the empowerment process and are not traditionally present in Latin American secondary schools. We must carefully consider the content and pedagogy of educational programs that attempt to promote women's empowerment, rather than assuming that education and empowerment automatically go hand-in-hand.
Investigating the possibilities of change in marital relationships, we argue, involves examining the interplay of gender consciousness, relational resources and material circumstances in their concrete, interactional manifestations. The attempt to address this interface is grounded in the idea that understanding gender relations necessarily involves both institutional and interactional dimensions. While much research has been devoted to the influence of material or structural resources on indicators such as the domestic division of labour, relatively little direct attention has been given to the issue of differing ‘relational’ or interpersonal resources. We use a multi-method approach based on interviews with women in different occupations to analyse possibilities of change in marital communication and the domestic division of labour in relation both to women's material and to their relational resources. We conclude that a combination of increased gender consciousness and the development of particular inter-personal skills facilitates negotiation and change in the boundaries regulating both communication and the domestic division of labour within the marital relationship.
Our work challenges and points out the limitations of the theoretical presumptions underlying the relationship between empowerment, education, and employment that have been emphasized in both the exiting literature and the current rhetoric to empower women in developing countries. We use survey, life history, and focus group data to empirically examine the relationship between schooling, paid work, and power in domestic decision making for young, married women in Sri Lanka. We argue that the relationship between education, work, and women's control of household decisions is conditioned by the larger social context, and as such, it is likely to reflect the extent to which the division of labor and access to information and economic resources are the bases of domestic power in the society under consideration. Our results make a strong case for the need to move away from broad-based conceptualizations of women's empowerment to a consideration of the specific arenas and dimensions along which women can have power. In focusing on the domestic arena alone, we find that there are important differences in both the nature and determinants of the financial as opposed to the social and organizational dimension of power in Sri Lankan households. Women who control one of these aspects of family decisions do not necessarily control the other, and while education and employment play an important role in determining women's input in financial decisions, they are largely immaterial in determining household decisions related to social and organizational matters. Our results also demonstrate the importance of going beyong simplistic and limited measures of schooling and work to consider more fundamental structural factors involving family, social, and economic organization.
Incl. abstracts in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian; bibliographical references This article presents results from a qualitative study on how the Honduran secondary education programme, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (SAT), attempts to "undo gender" (Deutsch 2007: 122) by encouraging students to rethink gender relations in their everyday lives in a way that reflects their increased consciousness of gender equality. My findings suggest that SAT increased women's gender consciousness and this heightened their desire for change in the domestic sphere. In some instances, women were able to negotiate a new sharing of responsibilities with their spouses. There are several features of SAT that make it a transformative innovation in education: (1) gender is mainstreamed into the curriculum; (2) gender is linked with the larger concept of justice; (3) students engage in reflection, dialogue and debate; (4) teachers are given the opportunity to reflect critically on their understanding of gender in professional development sessions; and (5) it emphasises that undoing gender requires change among individuals and in social structures such as the family.
Incl. tables, graphs, abstract and bibl. This paper uses household survey data to rank LAC countries' performance in two areas: (i) getting children into school on time and keeping them there, and (ii) turning their contact with the educational system into years of schooling. It presents multiple rankings because most countries' performance is not uniform across these dimensions. For instance, the Dominican Republic performs almost as well as the richest countries when it comes to keeping children in school, but as badly as the poorest few in terms of turning attendance into years of schooling. Further, the rankings, which are based on conventional and new measures of educational systems' performance, are occasionally quite different from those obtained using more widely available administrative data.
The article reviews the evidence on the role of education in economic development, with emphasis on issues that have appeared in the literature in the past two decades: the contribution of education to economic growth, the screening hypothesis, the segmentation of the labour market, the return to investment in schooling, and the effects of education on unemployment and income distribution. It concludes with an optimistic assessment of the contribution of educational investment to the development process, especially when such investment is targeted to primary schooling, general education, and improvements in the quality of instruction and when it is accompanied by cost-recovery at the higher levels of education. © 1988 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
This paper reviews social inequalities between men and women, exploring how they are played out among intimates within the household. Evidence is presented that households do not constitute a unified economy. Examples are provided of the tensions that exist between partners over life course decisions, including the use of income. In diverse cultural settings, mothers typically contribute the whole of their earned income and devote other resources they control to meeting the household's basic needs. Knowledge of how women use their earnings provides another rationale beyond that of productivity and justice for giving special attention to women's livelihoods.