Gendering childhood(s) and engagement with schooling in rural Sierra Leone

Abstract

In spite of widespread initiatives to improve access to education for girls, substantive concerns remain. While there is a rich and growing body of literature on gendered experiences of school in majority world contexts, absent is a focus on how this intersects with children's out of school lives. Further, research with children in rural communities is limited, including those who are in the earlier years of their schooling. This paper addresses these gaps, focusing on gendered dynamics in the everyday lives of children in five rural communities in Northern Sierra Leone. Drawing on Bourdieu, it explores the dialectical interplay between gendered and generational structures, understood as the gendered habitus, in a wider context of structural poverty, uneven and fragile post-colonial restructuring and development. This sets the groundwork for children's gendered dis/positioning, and ultimately capacity to engage with schooling.

Assessing experiences with violence and peace in primary schools in Sierra Leone

“…Our results indicate that children in primary schools in Sierra Leone are exposed to significant levels of direct violence (physical and psychological) perpetrated by their teachers and colleagues. This confirms several previous studies that showed high levels of violence against children in Sierra Leone (UNICEF, 2008; Concern Worldwide et al , 2010; UNICEF, 2010; Devine et al , 2019; Zuilkowski et al , 2019). Apart from direct violence, the composite index proposed also assesses the level of structural and cultural violence that children experience in schools and their lives in general.…”

Under the Mango Tree: Photovoice With Primary School Children in Rural Sierra Leone

“…During the discussion of taking this photo, a girl, Isa explained that this is her sister who dropped out from school due to pregnancy and who helps her to study at home. This explanation itself provides rich data and a fertile ground for further exploration of girls’ and women’s everyday life in the community including early pregnancies, barriers for pregnant girls to attend school, as well as about literacy dynamics at home (Devine et al, 2021a, 2021b). But the picture itself also represents a teenager who works (in this case sells small agriculture produce – what can be read from the pan on her head) which tells another story about the incidence of child work, sources of income suitable for women and gendered labour division.

Figure 5.My sister dropped out from school (a photo taken by a girl, Isatu).

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Picturing safety and danger: Children's perspectives in rural Sierra Leone

“…The paper draws on data gathered for a large-scale ongoing research project 'Safe Learning Study'. This longitudinal mixed methods study examines gender relations, literacy, well-being and schooling of primary school children in rural Sierra Leone (Devine et al, 2021). The qualitative component of the study comprises in-depth ethnographic work in four case study communities in a rural Tonkolili district in Northern Sierra Leone.…”

“…The concept of intra‐actions is borrowed from Barad's agential realism theory as “mutual constitutions” of subjects and objects (Barad, 2007, p. 33). We argue that concepts of danger and risks are constituted through the intra‐actions that take place between children, adults, material objects, spaces and spiritual beings but also through the intra‐actions with the wider societal context in which children live, including poverty, inequality, gender norms and generational orders (Devine et al, 2021).…”

“…They are capable of producing emotional responses and connections, which forces children to “act differently according to the objects encountered” (Deleuze, 1988, p. 21, see also Bennet, 2010). At the same time, as Quinn (2012) observes, a posthuman perspective often disregards such important aspects as socio‐economic context in which this exchange takes place, yet research is clear on the impact of these wider structural dynamics on children's interaction with their worlds (Abebe, 2019; Devine et al, 2021). Thus, while trying to overcome traditional boundaries between human and non‐human, it is important to take this complexity into account and place the analysis of the engagement with non‐human objects into the cultural, social and economic context.…”