Towards an African feminist framework for students' welfare in Nigerian Higher Education

这个拟议的项目建立在我的博士研究研究的基础上，题为《在我们自己的声音中：尼日利亚女本科生幸福感的关键参与性研究》(Nwako，2020)。在非洲的大学里，女学生处于不利地位，被边缘化，因为她们面临着一系列威胁她们身体健康、情感安全和学术进步的问题。然而，尼日利亚教育机构中女学生的福祉几乎没有得到研究关注，这些问题既没有得到太多的政策考虑，也没有机会在实践中加以改进。因此，这项研究旨在通过后殖民女权主义的视角，批判性地探索在西非的尼日利亚，女性本科生的幸福和能力是如何被概念化和理解的。女性参与者的发言权和机构特权，以及对大学结构殖民性的质疑，是在研究背景下使用的研究设计的内在特征。这项研究使用并推动了非洲女权主义社会学文献，并采用了一种关键的参与式方法，涉及数据收集和分析的创新方法(见案例中的已完成论文摘要以寻求支持)。博士研究发现，幸福是一个与西方教育政策话语捆绑在一起的不充分的概念，没有反映尼日利亚高等教育背景的现实。这项研究引入并发展了一种福利概念，这一概念不仅在大学中被非洲妇女更普遍地使用和理解，而且更好地反映了她们对背景经验的多个层面的谈判。这种重新概念化表明，必须了解和反映妇女在接受高等教育的物质条件方面的经历和动机。因此，通过这项研究，建立了一个新的概念图，导致了通过非洲女权主义者视角重新思考福利的框架。有意义的是，我的研究同样重视支持女学生在个人层面以及与其他女性的关系中发展对福利的理解和反应。个人和集体之间的这种互动支持了我的研究的参与性，并有助于通过潜在的奖学金项目进行合作和共同产生资源的想法。这项研究以妇女的声音和经历为中心，挑战了尼日利亚高等教育中的一些政策假设和优先事项。该项目有助于对正在进行的关于如何减少高等教育机构中基于性别的暴力的政策辩论提供重要的见解。这些问题将通过为博士后奖学金设计的参与工作来具体解决。这个ESRC博士后奖学金项目将巩固我作为非洲女权主义学术教育研究员和批评性学术评论员的职业生涯。我将能够与阿拉西·斯里普拉卡什教授密切合作，他是一位备受尊敬的导师，在性别和认知正义以及比较教育和国际教育中的后殖民和非殖民主义观点方面经验丰富。此外，我将采用多目标方法来传达我的博士研究的上述发现、影响和建议。这一方法将通过以下方式产生学术和个人影响：-国际同行评议的期刊出版物和赠款发展。-计划举办网络研讨会，与教育利益攸关方分享以政策为基础的研究成果，并支持机构政策和程序的制定。-通过可获得的、有吸引力的和创造性的成果，向非专业目标受众传播研究成果。-促进非洲女学生之间的知识交流，以建立增强能力的国家和国际网络。

This proposed project builds on my PhD research study titled 'In Our Own Voices: A Critical Participatory Study of the Wellbeing of Female Undergraduate Students in Nigeria' (Nwako, 2020). Women students are disadvantaged and marginalised in African universities as they face a myriad of problems that threaten their physical health, emotional safety and academic progress. However, the wellbeing of women students in Nigerian educational institutions has received little research attention, the issues are neither given much policy consideration nor opportunities for improvement in practice. Thus, the study aimed to critically explore the ways in which the wellbeing and capabilities of female undergraduate students are conceptualised and understood in Nigeria, a country in West Africa, through a postcolonial feminist lens. The privileging of the voice and agency of women participants, as well as an interrogation of the coloniality of university structures, was intrinsic to the research design used within the research context. The study engaged with and advanced African feminist sociological literature and employed a critical participatory methodology involving innovative methods of data collection and analysis (see Summary of completed thesis in the Case for Support). The PhD research found that wellbeing is an inadequate concept tied to western policy discourses in education that does not reflect the realities of the Nigerian higher education context. The research introduced and developed a concept of welfare which not only was more commonly used and understood by African women in universities, but better reflected their negotiations of multiple dimensions of contextual experiences. This re-conceptualisation signified the importance of understanding and representing the experiences and motivations of women with respect to the material conditions of higher education. Thus, a new conceptual map, leading to a framework for rethinking welfare through an African feminist lens, was established through the research.Significantly, my research equal importance on supporting women students develop their understandings and responses to welfare at an individual level as well as in relation with other women. This interaction between the individual and the collective underpins the participatory nature of my research and lends itself to the idea of collaboration and co-production of resources through the potential fellowship project.The centring of women's voices and experiences within the study challenged a number of policy assumptions and priorities within Nigerian higher education. The project contributes important insights into ongoing policy debates on how to mitigate gender-based violence in higher education institutions. These questions will be taken up specifically through the engagement work designed for the postdoctoral fellowship.This ESRC postdoctoral fellowship project will consolidate my career as an education researcher and critical academic commentator on African feminist scholarship. I will be able to work closely with Professor Arathi Sriprakash, a highly respected mentor who is experienced in gender and epistemic justice, as well as postcolonial and decolonial perspectives in comparative and international education.In addition, I will implement a multi-targeted approach to communicate the above-mentioned findings, implications and recommendations from my PhD study. This approach will have academic and individual impact through:- International peer-reviewed journal publications and grant development.- Planned webinars to share policy-based research findings with education stakeholders and to support the development of institutional policies and procedures.- Communication of research to a lay target audience through accessible, engaging and creative outputs.- Facilitation of knowledge exchange between African female students to establish empowering national and international networks.