ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, the expansion of girls’ education and the increased importance of the role of women in development have been guided by an instrumentalist neoliberal discourse resulting in the ‘othering’ and homogenizing of girls in the construction of international policies and the national education initiatives that derive from them. Assumptions guiding education policies that target girls and women have been strongly influenced by human capital concerns, which narrowly view education as an ‘intervention’ to address a broad range of social issues, such as poverty and HIV/ AIDS, or as a population control mechanism. We suggest that these policies and interventions often neglect adolescent girls’ specific needs, concerns, and interests, particularly those who live on the margins of their communities. Such policies especially overlook the varied views and understandings girls have about their participation in schooling, and/or their perceptions of their rights in education, particularly as part of a minority or marginalized group within a nation-state.
