ABSTRACT
The purpose of my study has been to identify factors that support the construction of educational pathways from the gender perspective in the Tanzanian context. This has been done by learning from ten highly educated Tanzanian women: how did they do it? How did they manage to achieve various educational beings and doings, in contrast to the majority of Tanzanian women, and what factors enabled them to pursue and realise their educational aspirations? The research aimed at reaching beyond education and schooling as such, and broadening the comprehension of gender equality in education only as ‘access to’, ‘participation in’, and equal number of resources in education. Hence, the focus of analysis has been on the school environment and social and familial environments, and on defining educational advancement in terms of the achievement of educational well-being and the exercise of agency. Women’s educational pathways have been understood in terms of their wellbeing achievements, but apart from the functionings, their opportunities and freedoms to achieve the various educational beings and doings that they have reason to value have been identified. At present, our understanding of the gendered complexities concerning
girls’ and women’s education in the global South, Tanzania in particular, is based on i) the national and international policy data, ii) findings from the previous research on education, gender and development, and most importantly, iii) the experiences and insights of ten highly educated women, hence, providing complemented comprehension of the hegemonic narrative and mainstream discourse of the challenges and achievements embedded in female education and schooling in the global South. What seems to characterise the research participants’ school experiences is the
axiomatic difference between their primary and secondary schools, regarding both the facilities and the teaching and learning ethos. In brief, the research participants’ primary schools were not very enabling and suited to opening up sets of capabilities for achieving such educational beings and doings as they had a reason to value. Instead, both the physical and the mental environments were rather poor: their schools were quite a distance away, the water and
toilet facilities were there but the quality was poor, the food was non-existent or bad, the classrooms were poorly equipped and fights over desks and chairs were normal; both female and male teachers frequently used corporal punishment as a method of learning as well as to maintain discipline, and the teachers held somewhat biased ideas towards girls’ ability to study and learn. However, poor physical school environments, many deficient experiences and the low quality of education did not constrain the research participants from functioning; instead, such school environments were regarded ‘as normal’ and to embrace sufficient and supportive conditions enough to stay enrolled, to perform well enough, and to progress further. Besides, the research participants had some very good and encouraging teachers who supported their educational well-beings and agency aspirations in primary education remarkably, most often, however, after reaching the level of secondary education. The teachers supported significantly women’s academic attainments, but in addition, they made an impact on their lives more generally speaking in developing their understandings of themselves as females, not just as female students. In addition to teachers, the research participants’ fellow students had a significant role in constructing their well-beings within the school environments: first, as a child, just to have friends to play and be with; later, as an adolescent, in enabling and supporting them to pursue agency goals and in the process of identity formation. The majority of the women got a different perspective on ‘normal’ upon
entering secondary education, and as noted previously, comprehended in this way, all of the prohibitive and constraining factors at the primary schools, may be reversed, and regarded, indeed, as supportive factors in constructing educational well-being and agency at secondary level, this represented by ‘no more caning’, ‘all girls’, ‘good teachers’ and a ‘friendly environment’. As previously discussed, this is how most of the women defined, and appreciated and enjoyed, the kinds of conducive and harassment-free environments in their secondary schools – as per their agency aspirations. Although the boarding secondary schools differed significantly from the research participants’ primary school experiences, particularly in the sense that for the first time they were able to focus on studying, still they were not only sitting and studying in a ‘conducive learning environment’ but instead, their days before and after school hours were work-loaded. ‘Working hard all the time’ seems to characterise also the women’s everyday
life practices and familial arrangements, which mirror also the kind of familial values and attitudes attached to the idea of girls’ and women’s education and schooling. Thus, what kind of sets of opportunities did their social and familial environments open up for them to realise the various educational beings and doings that they had a reason to value? The financial support, on the one hand, and moral encouragement, on the other, that the women got from their families, were the two most critical factors enabling them to construct educational pathways, and hence, reflecting their sets of capabilities. However, regardless of the positive familial ideas towards girls’ and women’s
education and schooling, they were not favoured in familial everyday life practices; on the contrary. All in all, as previously discussed, the various kinds of household duties and responsibilities, which the research participants were assigned to and responsible for, did, indeed, diminish their opportunities and freedoms to achieve educational well-being and agency aspirations. However, as just said, their sets of opportunities comprised two critical issues without which it is unlikely that they would have been able to function. Thus, striving for and gaining enough financial resources was a pre-requisite for the research participants’ educational achievements, yet converting the available resources into functionings was critically dependent on and supported by social factors, identifiable in the women’s cases as their parents and their ideas concerning the education and schooling of their daughters. As pointed out previously, resources and opportunities are not synonymous with educational well-being and equality, and for this reason, the critical issue here is that the research participants’ parents were providing education for all of their children, for the daughters and sons alike. Consequently, the fact of affording and the idea of female education – the value and relevance of it – are intertwined. Accordingly, their capability sets comprised of both ‘financial’ resources and ‘moral’ opportunities, but their utilisation and conversion into educational achievements were enabled by their parents. Hence, different to the research participants’ broader social environments, in which ‘They’ held quite an unconditional idea of Tanzanian woman entailing that, in the first place, girls and women are for marriage, family and taking care of children; in contrast, ‘Us’, their own parents, gave both intrinsic and instrumental value to education, hence enabling de facto the women’s education and schooling. The third core aspect that has been examined concerned women’s agency
notions. In examining the research participants’ educational choices, decisionmaking processes, the availability of opportunities and alternatives, and then focusing analytically on answering who decided what to reach for and how, four kinds of ‘freedoms’ were identified. These include ‘systemic given’, ‘educated by someone’, ‘own reasoning’ and ‘yes, but no’ kinds of strategies to construct educational well-being and agency. What may be concluded from the previous discussion is that the participants in this research perceived of having rather apparent and limited opportunities and alternatives (well-being freedoms), let alone autonomy to make decisions and take actions accordingly (agency freedoms); rather, their educational well-being and agency aspirations and freedoms were demarcated by the system (government, schools, teachers, pass marks), and they were socially given by the family members (mothers, fathers, other relatives, in-laws, husbands) rather univocally as per the idea of Tanzanian woman. On the other hand, despite the limited freedoms to exercise educational agency, at the end of the day, women’s educational beings and doings were no longer maintained in accordance with the idea of Tanzanian woman, but instead, they themselves aimed, they reasoned, and they decided to became something else, as per their own agency goals, hence having reached a position to negotiate and decide.
Finally, there were some contradictions and ambivalence evidenced in the women’s judgements regarding their well-being achievements and agency achievements, but still, the ‘yes but no’ kind of comprehension of their own agency was emancipated and positively connoted, and may be interpreted as statements from highly rational and realistic agents who aimed at optimising the existing opportunities and alternatives. I cannot and will not make any generalisations concerning Tanzania, let
alone the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and the global South, on the basis of the women’s narratives. However, the findings from the women’s experiences and insights may be posited in relation to and reflected towards similar contexts substantively. Moreover, I wish to pay attention to some viewpoints concerning the relevance and value of the research, including the overall setting and approach applied in the study methodologically.
