Negotiating gender norms in the context of equal access to education in north-western Tigray, Ethiopia

Mjaaland, Thera

doi:10.1080/09540253.2016.1175550

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The girls of this study partially challenged the norms assigned to their gender, in particular those customary norms related to the age at which a woman is supposed to become a housewife and mother in the rural context of Tigray. Consistent with the ethnographies conducted by Mjaaland (2004Mjaaland ( , 2013Mjaaland ( , 2016 in the same region, the findings of this study suggest that six out of seven girl participants made a strategic decision when they escaped, prioritizing their education over their family´s decision to marry them off. In the interviews, girls considered education as the primary means to get a "better" job that would provide them with their own incomes.…”

Section: Individual Factorssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…It is noteworthy that many young and older women in Tigray respect and support WAT, an influential local women's NGO which was founded by female fighters of the Tigray People´s Liberation Front (TPLF) during the struggle in 1977. They had an important advocacy role in demanding women´s rights, such as equal education and opportunities for girls (Mjaaland, 2013(Mjaaland, , 2016. The social legacy of WAT might also be an influential factor on girls´ decisions to escape arranged marriage and it might be feeding these personal aspirations to be educated and independent.…”

Section: Personal Aspirationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding female adolescent ‘runaways’ and the implications of their decisions in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Lurgain

Eyber

2022

Child Abuse & Neglect

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In-depth qualitative interviews with seven runaway adolescent girls and six women married at an early age (11-16 years old) were conducted in Wukro and Mekelle in Tigray to investigate why the girls escaped from home and how communities responded to these decisions.Results: Findings suggest that the immediate trigger that led all the young participants to run away was to escape an arranged marriage, except in one 'romantic' elopement case.Individual and structural factors, such as child maltreatment and educational aspirations, and new family law respectively, also contributed to the decision to escape. Conclusion:Adolescent runaways seem to be ignored or normalized within the community in Tigray and, in particular, by its public institutions. This may explain why there are limited services for runaway girls, such as shelters and other forms of support. This lack of social protection structures has left these girls unprotected and exposed to a range of risks, such as early and unwanted pregnancies, labor exploitation, dropping out of school, and transactional sex. To date, this phenomenon of adolescent runaways has remained an invisible issue in Tigray as runaway girls are counted under general migration figures.Further research is needed to explore how this phenomenon is categorized at policy level in order to address runaway girls' needs as defined by them.

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Section: Individual Factorssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Personal Aspirationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding female adolescent ‘runaways’ and the implications of their decisions in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Lurgain

Eyber

2022

Child Abuse & Neglect

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“…A related and probably strong influence is persistent patriarchal social structure and gender inequality (e.g. [87]). For Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad, "One of the key barriers to having desired number of children is sociocultural norms, especially the husband's role as primary decision-maker and the desire for a large family" [88].…”

Section: Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs

2020

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Background: The world population is expected to increase greatly this century, aggravating current problems related to climate, health, food security, biodiversity, energy and other vital resources. Population growth depends strongly on total fertility rate (TFR), but the relative importance of factors that influence fertility needs more study. Methods: We analyze recent levels of fertility in relation to five factors: education (mean school years for females), economy (Gross Domestic Product, GDP, per capita), religiosity, contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), and strength of family planning programs. We compare six global regions: E Europe, W Europe and related countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In total, 141 countries are included in the analysis. We estimate the strength of relationships between TFR and the five factors by correlation or regression and present the results graphically. Results: In decreasing order of strength, fertility (TFR) correlates negatively with education, CPR, and GDP per capita, and positively with religiosity. Europe deviates from other regions in several ways, e.g. TFR increases with education and decreases with religiosity in W Europe. TFR decreases with increasing strength of family planning programs in three regions, but only weakly so in a fourth, Sub-Saharan Africa (the two European regions lacked such programs). Most factors correlated with TFR are also correlated with each other. In particular, education correlates positively with GDP per capita but negatively with religiosity, which is also negatively related to contraception and GDP per capita. Conclusions: These results help identify factors of likely importance for TFR in global regions and countries. More work is needed to establish causality and relative importance of the factors. Our novel quantitative analysis of TFR suggests that religiosity may counteract the ongoing decline of fertility in some regions and countries.

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“…Unlike the adult meetings discussed above, student meetings were not marked by gender inequities; if anything, female students were perhaps slightly more vocal than their male counterparts. These generational differences suggest a disruption of traditional gender roles (Mjaaland 2016), in line with national development goals (MOE 2015).…”

Section: Patterns Of Participation and Influence By Age And Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy or control? The participation of management, teachers, students and parents in school leadership in Tigray, Ethiopia

Mitchell

2017

International Journal of Educational Development

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In Ethiopia, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there are efforts to broaden local stakeholder participation in structures and processes of school leadership. Despite advocacy from the World Bank, amongst others, research in SSA questions the extent to which such reforms reflect genuine democratisation. This study applies theories of power to the participation of local stakeholders (management, teachers, students and parents) based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a government primary school in Tigray. The study finds that management agendas dominate consultative and decision-making forums; however, these spaces also enable students and others to share their views on conduct within the school community, which serves an important accountability function.

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Negotiating gender norms in the context of equal access to education in north-western Tigray, Ethiopia

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Understanding female adolescent ‘runaways’ and the implications of their decisions in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Understanding female adolescent ‘runaways’ and the implications of their decisions in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs

Democracy or control? The participation of management, teachers, students and parents in school leadership in Tigray, Ethiopia

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