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Advancing Gender Equality: How Do We Move Forward Faster?

by Khuzama Khan, Director of Program Quality and Learning


Do you wonder why, despite significant advancements in various fields, gender equality has not truly advanced as expected? I started my career in the development sector 19 years ago and learned that women's economic progress was painfully slow. Reports such as the Progress of the World’s Women 2005 called organizations and socially responsible corporations to transform structures that perpetuate gender inequality, close the gender income gap, and ensure safe and healthy working conditions for all (1). 


Fast forward to 2024, and the world still struggles to achieve gender equality despite global efforts, making the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a distant goal (2). Where did we go wrong? What can be done differently? In this piece, I explore these questions by reflecting on the efforts within the education sector, which has the potential to both perpetuate and dismantle gender inequity. 


Lessons from implementing Girl Rising’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Framework

Over the past four years, the Girl Rising team implemented a gender-sensitive MEL framework to (a) measure the changes in the knowledge and practices of educators, adolescent girls and boys, and their parents after participating in Girl Rising’s educational program (3) on gender sensitization and social-emotional learning (SEL), and (b) identify what needs to be done differently in our programming to make a lasting impact in the communities we serve.


Using a mixed-method design, we conducted multiple rounds of formative evaluations in Pakistan, Kenya, and India during a three-year period to measure change over time. We then incorporated key findings from these evaluations into a new program cycle in Pakistan, and the implementation was measured again through the MEL framework. Interestingly, the feedback we received from our stakeholders paved the way for a larger discussion about course correction and the future direction for the gender and education community, all of which are highlighted in the four key points mentioned below.


Create Inclusive Learning Environments

Among the lessons learned about self-awareness and child rights, educators, parents, and adolescent girls and boys specifically credited the Girl Rising program with increasing their knowledge of gender as a social construct and their ability to identify gender-based discrimination in their communities. Additionally, educators reported applying the strategies they learned through the program in their teaching practice and personal lives, which we view as an investment in the future.


That said, the educators recommended that programs like Girl Rising should also focus on community building in learning environments to address a confluence of individual, domestic, and social factors that affect girls’ and boys’ ability to succeed in school and reach their full potential. Educators are at the heart of the learning process, but it is crucial for educational programs to invest time and resources in building a responsive community by meaningfully engaging all actors in a child’s learning environment, from school administrators and community leaders to parents and caregivers.


The outdated model of heavily relying on educators for students’ progress on both academic and social fronts has proven to be inefficient. The responsibility of dismantling historical inequities faced by girls and women must be shared in a system where all actors in a child’s life are equipped to adapt to the rapidly changing world around them. Such contributions to building the knowledge and skills of young people, especially girls, are essential to closing the gender gap in all walks of life.


Address Intersectionality by Program Design 

To fully understand how an individual experiences gender-based discrimination, we must consider the social, economic, and cultural spheres they navigate. Intersectionality emphasizes that various facets of individuals' identities like race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, sexuality, education, and many more are interconnected. It helps us see how these identities intersect with one another and are wrapped in systems of power (4) (5). 


Many girls, teachers, and families with whom Girl Rising works had not considered or discussed power relations in the family, school, community, or society prior to participating in the Girl Rising program. Our evaluations show that the Girl Rising curriculum offered a valuable way into this important conversation. One educator eloquently expressed her thoughts, encompassing a lot of what other educators mentioned in interviews: “We are empowering girls, but after empowerment, they are going to the same society where men are not sensitive enough to understand the need for such autonomy. So, we are launching our trained product in a weak system. It would have been better to make the girls aware that facing such challenges is tough and that they should be ready to face hardships and the consequences of going against society to achieve their dreams. If we do not tell them who is powerful and how to navigate their way around it, I feel like we are fantasizing things, diverting from the realities of life.”


Girl Rising and similar programs, especially those working with marginalized communities, have the potential to make their initiatives more intersectional. To achieve real advancements in the gender equality landscape, we must create safe spaces for girls, boys, educators, and parents to reflect on power relations in schools, families, and their communities; understand how gender intersects with other areas of discrimination and oppression, such as location, poverty, religion, and caste, to create unequal educational circumstances and challenges for women and men later in life. Talking about these intersectionalities will deepen the understanding of power structures that perpetuate injustice and what “human rights for all girls and boys and all people” mean in their respective contexts.


Collaborative Actions for Achieving Educational Outcomes

Our evaluations have shown that the Girl Rising programs, largely implemented in marginalized communities, have helped girls, boys, educators, and parents change their beliefs, attitudes, and some behaviors in favor of girls’ education. These newfound equitable beliefs and increased commitment to schooling are the foundations needed to support both girls’ and boys’ education. However, it is unsurprising that Girl Rising alone cannot significantly change educational outcomes, such as persistence in school.


Adolescents at risk of dropping out of school face systemic and structural challenges that can only be fully addressed through multi-stakeholder collaboration across sectors such as health, food security, climate adaptation, and economic development. It is well known that a hungry child will struggle in school, a family facing financial challenges will most likely pull their girl child out of school, and for adolescents, especially girls, to aspire to a brighter future, they need to see educational and economic opportunities within their reach. Evidence highlights the urgent need to design and deliver educational programs as part of a flexible ecosystem that aligns actions for educational transformation across various sectors and stakeholders (6). We can no longer discuss education in isolation. 


Informed by our evaluations, we will actively partner with local, national, and global organizations to combat the rising pressures related to health, mobility, financial resources, and discriminatory social norms that are keeping girls away from education.


Use of Narrative Techniques in Mixed-Methods Gender and Education Research

Storytelling is central to Girl Rising’s work, from educational programming to policy advocacy. It fosters discussions around critical social issues, amplifies the voice and agency of young people, connects them to the stakeholders in their communities, and builds support for girls and their rights.


Inspired by how well Girl Rising stories are received, we employed a sequential mixed-methods design for the MEL framework, integrating narrative research and storytelling techniques. These methods (7) provided more nuanced findings than traditional focus groups and surveys, revealing complexities in young people’s lives, such as gendered attitudes and activism.


For example, the combination of three methods highlighted how harmful gender norms, coupled with poverty, increased the pressure on some girls and boys to leave school. While traditional Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) prompted general responses, narrative techniques elicited deeper insights into the competing pressures of rigid gender roles, stereotypes of femininity, and the desire to continue schooling. These techniques also uncovered how girls, after participating in the Girl Rising program, developed reinforced beliefs about the importance of education and perseverance. However, they still faced the expectation of fulfilling traditional caretaking roles.


Narrative methods also helped differentiate between the pressures experienced by girls and boys. While boys felt compelled to earn money outside the home, girls faced the expectation to serve as caretakers, despite both genders valuing education and their right to attend school. Therefore, a combination of surveys, traditional FGDs, and narrative techniques was essential to fully understand the pressures of pulling girls and boys out of school and how harmful gender norms intersected with socio-economic factors in these communities.


The combination of using storytelling as a programming tool to spark a movement towards gender equitable beliefs and as a MEL strategy to elicit participants’ reflections powerfully illustrated the complexity of social change. In so doing, it highlighted the gains as well as the need for continuous work so that all girls can learn without barriers and achieve their full potential. 


At Girl Rising, we are grateful to our wonderful partner organizations in Pakistan (8), Kenya (9), and India (10) who bring these educational programs to life and catalyze local action. We are thankful to Miske Witt and Associates International for lending their research expertise and going above and beyond the call of duty. This work would not have been possible without the funding support and guidance from Echidna Giving and Together Women Rise. And last but certainly not least, acknowledgements to the small but mighty Girl Rising team for their patience, tenacity, and passion for this work. It takes a village!


Endnotes

(3) Girl Rising leveraged existing partnerships with local organizations focused on education and positive youth development in Pakistan, Kenya, and India. Partner organizations and the educators they collaborated with received training to implement Girl Rising’s contextualized curriculum on gender sensitization and SEL with adolescent girls and boys in school or community settings. Simultaneously, the parents of these adolescents were engaged in a series of sessions on self-awareness, importance of education and gender sensitization. The program’s objective was to help young people succeed in school and exercise their agency to fulfill their goals in life.

(5) Intersectionality in Education: Rationale and practices to address the needs of students’

(7) Half-a-story is a technique used during a FGD where groups are given an unfinished story (after the problem has been introduced) and are asked to shape possible endings (success or failure), discussing the associated risks and opportunities. (2) Students were asked to write a postcard to Girl Rising reflecting on how their thinking (beliefs, attitudes, ideas) related to girls’ rights and opportunities changed over the course of the Girl Rising program, with the prompts, “I used to think…”, and “now I think…”. Students were given time to think, write, and ask questions.

(10) Ibtada

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