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

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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?'.