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?