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Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India

BACKGROUND: Gender-related norms and poverty remain important structural barriers to secondary school attendance among adolescent girls in southern India. We analyse how gender norms interact with family deprivation and dynamics to result in girls dropping out of school; we identify the main facilit...

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Autores principales: Ramanaik, Satyanarayana, Collumbien, Martine, Prakash, Ravi, Howard-Merrill, Lottie, Thalinja, Raghavendra, Javalkar, Prakash, Murthy, Srikanta, Cislaghi, Ben, Beattie, Tara, Isac, Shajy, Moses, Stephen, Heise, Lori, Bhattacharjee, Parinita
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6124724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30183747
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202470
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author Ramanaik, Satyanarayana
Collumbien, Martine
Prakash, Ravi
Howard-Merrill, Lottie
Thalinja, Raghavendra
Javalkar, Prakash
Murthy, Srikanta
Cislaghi, Ben
Beattie, Tara
Isac, Shajy
Moses, Stephen
Heise, Lori
Bhattacharjee, Parinita
author_facet Ramanaik, Satyanarayana
Collumbien, Martine
Prakash, Ravi
Howard-Merrill, Lottie
Thalinja, Raghavendra
Javalkar, Prakash
Murthy, Srikanta
Cislaghi, Ben
Beattie, Tara
Isac, Shajy
Moses, Stephen
Heise, Lori
Bhattacharjee, Parinita
author_sort Ramanaik, Satyanarayana
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Gender-related norms and poverty remain important structural barriers to secondary school attendance among adolescent girls in southern India. We analyse how gender norms interact with family deprivation and dynamics to result in girls dropping out of school; we identify the main facilitators of school retention and changes to gender socialisation. METHODS: Longitudinal qualitative case studies with 36 girls were nested within a cluster randomized trial to evaluate the Samata intervention targeting adolescent girls in Bagalkote and Vijayapura districts in northern Karnataka. We used two rounds of in-depth interviews, conducted in 2014 at a time when respondents were in 8(th) standard at the age of 13 to 14 and sixteen months later. We combined thematic and narrative analyses. RESULTS: Our study found that poverty and socioeconomic realities at the household level strongly affect conformity with discriminatory gender practices such as restricting girls’ mobility. The value placed on education by parents clearly differentiates the regular school goers from those frequently absent and others who dropped out. With active encouragement of the girls’ educational and career aspirations, parents engendered the girl’s agency to communicate openly both at home and at school, allowing subtle changes to gender performance while resisting the pressure of social sanctions. In contrast, where educational aspirations were weak, parents invested more intensely in enforcing correct performance of gender, prioritising her well-being by aiming to secure her future in a good marriage. Among poorer families, girls’ domestic duties came at the cost of schooling with concerns about protecting her sexual purity predominating. CONCLUSIONS: In contexts where a strong gender ideology of virginity before marriage rules, subtle shifts in harmful gender practices are possible. Interventions aiming to improve education need to target the most deprived families, focussing on trust building through open communication.
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spelling pubmed-61247242018-09-16 Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India Ramanaik, Satyanarayana Collumbien, Martine Prakash, Ravi Howard-Merrill, Lottie Thalinja, Raghavendra Javalkar, Prakash Murthy, Srikanta Cislaghi, Ben Beattie, Tara Isac, Shajy Moses, Stephen Heise, Lori Bhattacharjee, Parinita PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Gender-related norms and poverty remain important structural barriers to secondary school attendance among adolescent girls in southern India. We analyse how gender norms interact with family deprivation and dynamics to result in girls dropping out of school; we identify the main facilitators of school retention and changes to gender socialisation. METHODS: Longitudinal qualitative case studies with 36 girls were nested within a cluster randomized trial to evaluate the Samata intervention targeting adolescent girls in Bagalkote and Vijayapura districts in northern Karnataka. We used two rounds of in-depth interviews, conducted in 2014 at a time when respondents were in 8(th) standard at the age of 13 to 14 and sixteen months later. We combined thematic and narrative analyses. RESULTS: Our study found that poverty and socioeconomic realities at the household level strongly affect conformity with discriminatory gender practices such as restricting girls’ mobility. The value placed on education by parents clearly differentiates the regular school goers from those frequently absent and others who dropped out. With active encouragement of the girls’ educational and career aspirations, parents engendered the girl’s agency to communicate openly both at home and at school, allowing subtle changes to gender performance while resisting the pressure of social sanctions. In contrast, where educational aspirations were weak, parents invested more intensely in enforcing correct performance of gender, prioritising her well-being by aiming to secure her future in a good marriage. Among poorer families, girls’ domestic duties came at the cost of schooling with concerns about protecting her sexual purity predominating. CONCLUSIONS: In contexts where a strong gender ideology of virginity before marriage rules, subtle shifts in harmful gender practices are possible. Interventions aiming to improve education need to target the most deprived families, focussing on trust building through open communication. Public Library of Science 2018-09-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6124724/ /pubmed/30183747 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202470 Text en © 2018 Ramanaik et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ramanaik, Satyanarayana
Collumbien, Martine
Prakash, Ravi
Howard-Merrill, Lottie
Thalinja, Raghavendra
Javalkar, Prakash
Murthy, Srikanta
Cislaghi, Ben
Beattie, Tara
Isac, Shajy
Moses, Stephen
Heise, Lori
Bhattacharjee, Parinita
Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title_full Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title_fullStr Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title_full_unstemmed Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title_short Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India
title_sort education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: a qualitative study from karnataka, southern india
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6124724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30183747
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202470
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