| |
|
Date Added to
Site: 12th May 2004 |
| |
Short Summary
|
| Title |
Literacy, Gender and Social Agency: Adventures
in Empowerment, A Research Report for ActionAid UK |
| Author |
Fiedrich, M. and Jellema, A. with Haq, N., Nalwoga,
J. and Nessa, F. |
| Publication
Date |
September 2003 |
| Publisher |
Action Aid |
| Donor |
UK Department for International Development (DFID)
|
|
Short Summary |
Do education programmes aiming to 'empower' women
in reality lead to significant and large-scale positive change in
the lives of disadvantaged women? Or do empowerment initiatives simply
promote western-style modernity 'in disguise'? Were these participatory
projects really different from traditional school-type education?
This research project looked at four Reflect participatory adult education
projects in Bangladesh and Uganda. It aimed to establish why the projects
were introduced, what was expected of them and how people perceived
their activities. The study used the example of literacy programmes
to show how participatory methodologies often reinforce top-down,
western-centric development models. It found that it was misguided
to expect participants to challenge long-standing ideas of power and
progress. More important to them was to gain status and respectability
through conforming to existing systems such as participation in the
public sphere. However, small but important gains for many individual
women were made through Reflect such as discussion and communication
skills and the ability of women to claim a particular status as a
result of being educated. The report concludes that it is not so much
a case of changing what is done, but of changing how it is reported
and the significance attached. |
| Complete Document |
 View
Document |
|
