Think Like a Girl: Reconfiguring Narratives of Female Empowerment within Education Programs

我赞同“教育打开大门”的规范理想，但质疑其实证有效性，这让我走上了教育政策中女性赋权话语的道路，并研究了女孩和妇女如何看待和优先赋予权力。简而言之，如果不加批判地接受像增加女生入学这样的计划，将其视为“打开大门”，我们就有可能让木匠和锁匠这类机构黯然失色。以女孩和妇女特定背景的生活经历为中心的女性赋权话语是一种对权力敏感的方式，以避免西方主导的教育研究的复制和归化，促进为女孩和妇女创建的项目，以及由女孩和妇女创建的项目。暂定的标题可以是《像女孩一样思考：重新配置教育项目中女性赋权的叙事》。就文献而言，这一研究思路跨越了两个领域：第一个领域是女权主义政治经济学家的工作，他们批评赋权话语的合法性，这些话语与经济增长发展模式及其在教育中的适用性有关。马德琳·阿诺教授的文章《社会文化生殖与妇女教育》是工具性阅读，将学校作为复制劳动力和性别关系的空间(2002：25)。具有讽刺意味的是，在非政治真空中看待教育，否定了女孩教育中的赋权是如何取决于其他社会经济因素的。第二类文学植根于第三世界女权主义和后殖民主义观点，特别是本土知识在学校教育中的重要性，以及在发展话语中将女孩视为普遍受压迫和需要西方救世主的本体论框架(Mohanty，1988：61；Oyewumi，1997)。这一文献基础开启了一场关于赋权叙事的潜力的讨论，以及它们目前如何成为不平等的症状，而不是一个没有问题的解决方案。理想情况下，我想专注于一个国家作为案例研究，并对学生进行采访，提出这样的问题，例如：赋权对你来说是什么？以及“你什么时候感觉到被赋予了权力？”鉴于这种大流行可能不可能进行国际旅行，通过批判性地接触不同国家先前存在的案例研究，可以成功地开展硕士级别的项目。这一研究方案的可比性还将确保得出全面、可靠的结论，同时仍然优先考虑妇女和女童在教育方面的声音和利益。我提到的第二篇文献在这里变得有用了。此外，评估联合国和世界银行等其他非政府组织的项目将有助于证实分析学术工作的论点。我可以评估这些项目的目标、参数和结果在促进女孩教育赋权方面是有利的、没有反应的，或者是适得其反的。的确，女孩效应的《时钟在滴答作响》的宣传片激发了我研究这一领域的动力。我认为，这段视频展示了一个女孩从扭打的手中逃跑(象征着少女怀孕和艾滋病毒的传播)，是一种危险的简化主义方式，将接受教育作为一种手段来解决问题，而不是本身的目的。归根结底，我的研究兴趣植根于更广泛的认识论问题：谁从教育中受益？以及“谁来决定它的结构和参数？”

Subscribing to the normative ideal of 'education opening doors' but questioning its empirical validity led me down the avenue of female empowerment discourses in education policy and researching how girls and women view and prioritise empowerment. In short, by uncritically accepting programs such as increasing the enrollment of girls in schools as 'opening doors,' we risk eclipsing the agency of the carpenters and locksmiths. Centering female empowerment discourses with the context-specific lived experiences of girls and women is a power-sensitive way of avoiding the reproduction and naturalisation of Western-led educational research, facilitating programs created for, with and by girls and women. A working title could be, 'Think Like a Girl: Reconfiguring Narratives of Female Empowerment within Education Programs.' In terms of the literature, this research idea bridges two fields: the first being work by feminist political economists criticising the legitimacy of empowerment discourses related to economic growth models of development and their applicability within education. Professor Madeline Arnot's article, 'Socio-cultural Reproduction and Women's Education,' is instrumental reading, conveying schools as spaces where labour forces and gender relations are reproduced (2002: 25). Ironically, viewing education in an apolitical vacuum negates how empowerment in a girl's education is conditional to other socio-economic factors. The second body of literature is rooted in Third-world feminism and postcolonial perspectives, particularly the importance of indigenous knowledge within schooling and the ontological framing of girls as universally oppressed and in need of western saviours within development discourse (Mohanty, 1988: 61; Oyewumi, 1997). This grounding in the literature opens up a discussion on the potential of empowerment narratives and how they are presently symptomatic of inequalities rather than an unproblematic solution.Ideally, I would like to focus on one country as a case study and conduct interviews with students, posing questions such as 'what is empowerment to you?' and 'when do you feel empowered?'. In light of the pandemic, where international travel may not be possible, conducting a master's level project can be successful through critically engaging with pre-existing case studies across different countries. The comparative nature of this research option will also ensure holistic, reliable conclusions while still prioritising the voices and interests of women and girls in education. The second body of literature I mention becomes useful here. Additionally, evaluating programs by the United Nations and other NGOs such as The World Bank will help substantiate arguments from analysing scholarly work. I can assess these programs' goals, parameters, and outcomes to be conducive, unresponsive, or counterproductive in fostering educational empowerment for girls. Indeed, The Girl Effect's 'The Clock is Ticking' promotional video sparked my motivation to research this field. I thought the video showing a girl running from grappling hands (symbolising teenage pregnancy and the spread of HIV) was a dangerous and reductivist way of problematising access to education as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Ultimately, my research interests are rooted in the broader epistemological questions of 'who benefits from education?' and 'who gets to decide its structure and parameters?'.