ABSTRACT
Shagufta looked around the dark, quiet room as if to ensure that no one else was listening, then turned to us and began to describe her route to becoming a teacher. Her story, told partly in Urdu and partly in English, was offered in a hushed voice. She spoke quickly but deliberately about growing up in poverty in urban Pakistan. With no money or social support to further her education beyond tenth grade, Shagufta enrolled in night courses to become a teacher. Pausing as other teachers and students walked down the hallway outside the room, Shagufta talked about how her attendance at night school led her to be ostracized by her community for being a “woman of the night.”
