Introducing gender equity to adolescent school children: A mixed methods' study

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade, gender equality and women's empowerment have been explicitly recognized as key not only to the health of nations but also to social and economic development. The aim of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a mixed methods' participatory group education approach to introduce gender equity to adolescent school children. It also assessed baseline and postintervention knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding gender equity, sexual and reproductive health among adolescent students in government-aided schools, and finally, compare the pre- and post-intervention gender equitable (GE) attitudes among the study participants. METHODOLOGY: A government-aided school was selected by nonprobalistic intentional sampling. On 5 predesignated days, willing students were included in the intervention which included a pretest, a group of educational-based participatory mixed methods' intervention followed by a posttest assessment. A total of 186 students participated in the study. RESULTS: Girls had better baseline GE scores as compared to boys and they also improvised more on the baseline scores following the intervention. CONCLUSION: The present mixed method approach to introduce gender equity to adolescent school children through a group education-based interventional approach proved to be effective in initiating dialog and sensitizing adolescents on gender equity and violence within a school setting.