Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: School Girls and Modern Women: Education and Gender in Contemporary Bhutan

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Doctoral student, Dolma Choden Roder (Arizona State University), under the guidance of Dr. James Eder, will undertake research on how schooling affects gender relations and experiences. The research will be carried out in Bhutan where access to formal education and literacy are comparatively recent for most women because non-monastic, co-educational institutions have been available only since the 1960s. It has long been claimed that Bhutanese society is characterized by gender equity, which differentiates the country from much of South Asia. However, little research has tested these claims or determined what equity actually means for women's lives. The researcher will investigate three key features of schooling as they affect women: 1) access to formal education, 2) the experience of schooling, and 3) the outcomes of schooling, particularly in relation to individual aspirations and perceived access to the labor market. Research will take place at Sherubtse College, the oldest and for many years the country's only college. As a national institution, it draws students from all over the country and therefore promises to reveal much about the national experience of Bhutanese schooling. The researcher will employ a variety of social science methods including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, video elicitation, classroom observations, and archival research.Formal education is increasingly a universal contemporary experience. In developing nations, these relatively new and foreign institutions can have significant political, cultural, and social effects. Schools therefore are rich sites for before-and-after studies that will elucidate the underlying causes of social change, including gender relations. This study also has the potential to provide useful and timely data to policy makers and educators, and it will contribute to the education of a graduate student.