Post on 12-Jul-2015
transcript
The Dialectic between GlobalGender Goals and Local Empowerment:girls’ education in Southern Sudanand South Africa
Holmarsdottir at al., 2011
To what extent has
school and familyshaped your gender
identity?
Key issues
• How is gender equality and equity understood at grassroot level? And how does it relate to the national policies of ”global governance”?
• How to research gender equality in education, not in a numerical way, but going beyond parity?
Context
South Sudan
• Post-civil war
• 7% of the teachers are women
• 2% of girls graduate primary school
South Africa
• Post-apartheid
• Reached numerical equality
Post-structuralist approach
• Examines the construction of meaning and power relations as they affect the contemporary educational decisions
• Seeks to identify and expose biases that marginalize the educational needs of women and contribute to educational disparities
Global Governance/ World Institutionalization of Education
Global governance does not only affects the way in which educational systems are influenced, it also involves how we view and define various issues within education.
Empowerment
A process by which people, organizations, or groups, who are powerless become aware of the power dynamics at work in their life context, develop the skills and capacity for gaining some reasonable control over their lives, exersice this control without infringing upon the rights of others and support the empowerment of others in the community.
Empowerment contd.
Situation of empowerment
Dimensions of empowerment
Empowering Situation
Cognitive Psychological Political Economic
Composition of Power
Power overControlling power which may be responded to with compliance,
resistance or manipulation.
Power to
Generative or productive power which creates new possibilities
and actions without domination
Power with A sense of the whole being grater
than the sum of individuals
Power withinThe spiritual strenght and uniqenes that recides in each one of us and makes us truly human, its basis is self-acceptence
and self-respect which extents to respect for and acceptence of others as equals
Liberal Developmentalism
New dimensions to the liberal concept of justice. It emphasizes that the goal of both justice and poverty reduction should be to expand the functional capability people have to enjoy
functional capability *Valuable beings and doings such as being nourished, being confident or taking part in group decisions
Main objectives of research
Investigate whether or not (and to what extent) education can be seen as a tool of empowerment for girls. Case of South Sudan (Juba) and South Africa(Cape Town)
Methods used
Focus group discussions, formal and informal observations, and individual interviews
Findings
• Gap between policy and local practice in education
• High desire of girls to have control over their own life choices, to be autonomous, to make a contribution to the community
• Education represents hope for the future and change
• Peer group culture within the school environment
• Lack of correlation between the community and school
• The NGO’s and the government in South Sudan do not collaborate as equal partners
Solutions
• The government needs to be an active partner in implementing gender equality projects
• Schools that challenge traditional sex roles
• Female teachers as role models and agents of change
• Pedagogical structural tools to achieve gender equity (fairness)
• Seeing gender equality as a part of the larger vision of a democratic society
• What about the boys?
Conclusions
• “Go beyond the numbers”
• A post-structural approach focusing on qualitative studies
of the nature of power, discrimination and exclusion
• Parity doesn’t necessarily bring about empowerment
• Access to meaningful education (that provides epistemic
access)
• Development of fair gender practices, pedagogical content
and social settings at school
To what extent can education contribute to gender equality and equity?