Manish Arora, Ahvaan Trust: Challenging Gender Norms: Gender and Educational Equity in India
Rationale: This study addresses gender disparities in India’s educational system and societal norms’ impact on educational experiences, particularly in roles like pre-primary teaching dominated by females. It quantifies disparities in literacy rates, school enrolment, and workforce participation, highlighting challenges for females.
Objectives:
– To Evaluate Gender Disparities in Education, focusing on literacy rates, school enrolment, and workforce representation.
– To Examine the Influence of Gender Stereotypes by investigating how societal roles and cultural norms perpetuate gender stereotypes in the education system
– To Analyse Strategies for Gender Equity through policy reform, curriculum development, and capacity-building.
Introduction: The intersection of gender and education involves the roles, behaviors, and expectations society assigns based on perceived sex, affecting both access to and quality of education. This abstract explores the multi-dimensional concept of gender and its influence on the educational experiences of students and educators. Social roles and cultural norms perpetuate gender stereotypes, leading to unequal participation and representation in education. For instance, teaching at the pre-primary level is often seen as a feminine profession, resulting in a predominance of female teachers and a lack of diverse perspectives.
In India, these gender disparities extend to educational attainment and workforce participation. In 2019, literacy rates were 82% for males and 65% for females, while school enrolment rates were 83% for males and 74% for females. Additionally, workforce participation in 2020 was 76% for males and 24% for females. Limited training in gender responsive pedagogy for educators exacerbates these inequalities, hindering their ability to address and reduce gender biases in the classroom.
Intervention: The Ahvaan Trust in Chhattisgarh has adopted a strategy to challenge traditional gender roles by involving male educators in early childhood education in collaboration with the state government. This approach demonstrates the potential for inclusive practices to transform educational landscapes. The success of such initiatives highlights the need for ongoing efforts in gender awareness, curriculum development, capacity building of state authorities, and policy reform to achieve gender equity in education. Addressing these challenges is crucial for fostering an inclusive, diverse, and equitable educational environment that benefits all students and educators.
Miitta Järvinen, University of Turku: Intersectionality of religious freedom in Finnish education for adult migrants
After receiving a residence permit in Finland, education is among the first institutions that migrants will attend in case they are unemployed. Finnish education for adult migrants varies from literacy and basic education to language and competency training for skilled professionals. These institutions participate in the “social integration” of migrants, and within them, according to a 2012 core curriculum, “[–] all migrants receive information about their rights and responsibilities in Finnish society and its world of work [–].”
As per legislation, educators have responsibility to promote the equity and equality of their students, as well as support the possibilities to maintain their own language and culture. In this presentation, the outlook on rights is religious freedom as a civil right. I will examine how (migrants’) religious freedom intersects the social categories of gender, race, and labour market position. With the interview excerpts, I will illustrate how these intersections manifest in the educators’ accounts of their encounters with their students. I will focus on the following themes:
1) the educator’s account of religious freedom.
2) prioritizing religion/other aspects of life
3) racialization and gendering of religion.
The presentation is based on the analysis of the interviews with educators who work in integration training, basic education for adults, and liberal adult education, and their understanding of diversity. In my doctoral research, the intersectional approach entails that the perceptions of social categories that constitute diversity reflect the actor’s (i.e., educators’) positions within power hierarchies.
Qiqi Suutari, University of Oulu: Cultural Diversity Among Finland’s Early Childhood Educators – Implications for Professional and Organizational Development
While intersectionality-informed research conducted under the themes of diversity and equity in education often addresses educators’ pedagogical practices in relation to beneficiaries of education (Mikander & Mansikka, 2023; Kurian & Rajala, 2023; Valkonen & Furu, 2023; Van Houten, 2014; Sun, 2014; Xenofontos et al., 2024; Lang et al., 2024), such intersections also influence how one positions themself as an educator (Ennser-Kananen, J. & Ruohotie-Lyhty, M., 2023), understandings of antiracism and respective practices in an institutional setting (Loukola, 2023), and how conceptualizations of diversity and belonging intertwine between personal and professional lives of educators (Juutinen & Kess, 2019).
As a female predominated sector (Tilastokeskus, 2023) with over 30% of staff turnover rate in the past few years (Osaamistarvekompassi, 2024) and concern among professionals over the sector’s economic equity (Hjelt, 2023), Finland’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) offers fruitful ground for exploring how aspects of cultural diversity, such as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background (Juutinen & Kess, 2019) intersect to affect collegial interactions and professional development. Building on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition (2012) and Nancy Fraser’s notion of gender as a two-dimensional linkage between recognition and redistributive justice (2003), this study invites practitioners-on-parental leave to reflect on the connection between motherhood and ECEC (Ailwood, 2008), personal migration experiences, and other personally meaningful intersections in cultural diversity which have allowed them to refine their abilities to develop practices in professional communities to support recognition and redistributive justice.
Nimish Jhingan, ASU: Intersecting Inequalities: Gender, Education, Migration, and the Financialization of Capitalism
This paper explores the crosscutting intersections of gender, education, migration, and the financial markets, examining how capitalist structures privatize profits while socializing risks, disproportionately affecting migrant women. It analyses the financialization of education and its impact on marginalized groups, particularly women from migrant communities, who face increasing barriers to educational access in privatized systems. The paper also investigates the role of migrant women in global labor markets, highlighting their vulnerability in underpaid sectors and the exploitation of their labor to fuel corporate profits. Furthermore, it addresses how financial markets and economic shocks, such as global crises, exacerbate inequalities by shifting the social and economic costs onto migrant populations while protecting private capital. By linking financial markets with gender-sensitive policies and the commodification of education, the paper emphasizes the need for government intervention to mitigate the negative impacts of privatization and promote equitable access to education for migrant women. Through an analysis of remittances, microfinance, and the role of public-private partnerships, the study advocates for systemic reforms that ensure financial inclusion and social protections for women navigating migration, education, and labour. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of how gendered and migratory experiences interact with global finance, calling for an integrative approach to economic policy that prioritizes human development alongside market growth.
