ABSTRACT
Careful research inside ethnic communities, or within social boundaries set by gender membership, displays the power to uncover empirical mysteries. This chapter looks into one such discovery and a related bundle of cultural questions. Our first-ever national literacy assessment revealed that young women in two northern ethnic groups, Tswana and North Sotho females, go further in school and achieve higher language proficiency than other African groups. This is not a simple story about social-class difference. Instead we observe how ethnic and local variability plays out in gendered communities. It also is a story that reveals the blinders that narrow the vision of central policy makers. We are just beginning to understand why particular local conditions—marked by variable family commitments and human-scale institutions, like the church and school—yield differing educational attainments for women in the northern reaches of South Africa. I will first detail these hopeful findings, then examine alternative explanations for why this intriguing advantage may have emerged under apartheid.
