Attitudes of secondary school teachers towards inclusive education in New Delhi,India

This study was undertaken to determine the attitudes of secondary regular schoolteachers towards the inclusion of students with disabilities in New Delhi. A total of 470 teachers, working in schools managed by a private organisation in Delhi, returned the completed survey. A two‐part questionnaire was used in this study. Part one gathered information relating to personal and professional characteristics of the teachers. Part two was a 16‐item Likert scale titled, Attitudes towards Inclusive Education Scale. The major finding of the study was that the teachers in Delhi had positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. This study also indicated that the teachers who were more positive about inclusive education were male, younger teachers (less than 40 years of age), less experienced (less than 10 years) and had postgraduate qualifications. In addition, the teachers who had a contact with a person with a disability and those who did not have a focus on disability during their preservice teacher education programmes were more positive towards inclusive education.     

The problem of gender categorisation: addressing dilemmas past and present in gender and education research

Developments in the field of gender theory as applied to education since the 1970s are briefly reviewed in order to highlight key challenges and debates around gender categorisation and identification in gender and education. We argue that conundrums of categorisation have haunted, and continue to haunt, the field of gender theory, and empirical applications (such as the case of education) in particular. We explain how we have attempted to address some of the conundrums arising in our own theoretical work, and analyse remaining challenges that we feel the field of education needs to address in order to advance theoretically. Identifying two key tensions underpinning this empirical dilemma of gender categorisation – the tension between agency and determinism in gender identification, and that between gender deconstruction and gender analysis – we seek to weave a path through some of these complex debates, and to indicate ways in which they may be addressed in future work. We argue that in order to avoid essentialism and reification of gender distinction, we need to apply a ‘three-fold’ analysis that incorporates three different elements in our categorisation of gender: spectator perspective; respondent perspective and social context.     

Sexuality education in India: examining the rhetoric,rethinking the future

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) has been recognised globally as key to helping young people assert their sexual and reproductive rights. In India too, there is growing awareness of the importance of providing CSE not only to reduce sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancies and abortions but also to teach important life skills. Simultaneously, lack of political will and conflicting interests among certain religious and political factions have ensured that no uniform CSE curriculum has been implemented throughout the country. This paper analyses the Adolescent Education Programme teacher curriculum as revised in 2009–2010 by the National Council of Educational Research and Training and the United Nations Population Fund. It highlights some of the opportunities presented by the curriculum and argues that despite its intent of providing relevant sexuality education for young people, the language of the curriculum is vague, thus potentially exacerbating confusion, and excluding people who do not conform to societal stereotypes of sex, gender, and ability. In order to be holistic, any CSE programme must be inclusive, cater to diverse needs and present content in a rights-based language without adding to the socio-cultural context of mystery and shame attached to sexuality.     

Aspirations and equality in higher education: gender in a South African university

This paper considers ways to theorise aspirations in terms of capabilities and agency to function as human beings, as well as our resources to act and participate in this world using a South African case of women students’ aspirations. In this analysis higher education should foster women’s freedom as critical agents to make genuine choices about their lives and futures, including being able to engage critically with gender norms. The paper thus explores critical agency, together with aspirations – the goals one wants to reach in the future – that indicate which capabilities are valued and which could unlock critical agency. However, the paper also considers the ambiguities generated by the persistence of gender norms and the way these may work in higher education cultures to constrain what women have reason to value and hence their capabilities and achievements.     

Islamic parents’ attitudes and beliefs towards school-based sexual and reproductive health education programmes in Oman

School-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programmes play an important role in reducing young people’s sexual risk behaviour and promoting health and well-being. There is limited evidence regarding the attitudes and beliefs of parents towards the implementation of school-based CSE programmes in Islamic cultural settings, including Oman, which this mixed-method study set out to explore. A convenience sample of 250 parents, with equal numbers of mothers and fathers of children aged 12–14 years (grades 7–9) at two urban public pre-secondary schools in Saham, completed a paper-based self-administered questionnaire in Arabic. We found most parents (72.8%) supported school-based CSE programmes that conformed to Islamic requirements of pre-marital sexual abstinence, but there was some opposition. Almost all parents supported comprehensive age-appropriate CSE being taught to students aged 10–15 years, including topics perceived as controversial in Omani culture, except for birth control and safer sex. Most parents considered themselves, school teachers and school nurses to be important sources of CSE. The study findings which suggest strong parental support for CSE programmes can facilitate education policy, CSE curriculum decision-makers and school healthcare-providers in Oman, other Middle Eastern countries, and countries with Muslim immigrant populations.     

Teaching gender and sexuality diversity in foundations of education courses in the US

This article is a summary of comprehensive units on gender and sexuality diversity that the authors have used in teacher education courses in undergraduate and graduate social foundations of education classes over several years. The course lesson plan includes a five‐part analysis of the following categories: biological sex; gender identity/sexual identity; gender roles; sexual behavior; and sexual orientation. The authors have experienced much success and positive student evaluation by using this approach. This is true even in religiously and politically conservative universities. The authors introduce the complexity of biology, gender roles, and gender identity, before addressing human sexuality. This helps to diffuse many stereotypes and misconceptions in the initial lessons.     

Comprehensive sexuality education,culture and gender: the effect of the cultural setting on a sexuality education programme in Ethiopia

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is recognised as an effective method of sexual health education, with the school identified as a fitting site of implementation. Its holistic and participatory nature endeavours to develop the knowledge, attitudes and life-skills of students to help them secure their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This qualitative study aimed to better understand aspects of CSE implementation in one context. Specifically, it focuses on the effects of the cultural setting, considering how gender and sexuality norms influence teacher and student implementation strategies. The research was carried out in one secondary school in Ethiopia, which delivered a Dutch-developed programme throughout 2013. Over 50 in-depth interviews were conducted with teachers and students, influential community members and experts in SRHR. Data were also gathered through focus group discussions and classroom observations. Results show that CSE teachers and students, both male and female, were able to discuss issues of sexuality. However, the cultural context was seen to affect interpretation of programme information, influencing the nature of this discussion. For an impactful implementation, it is recommended that sexuality education aims to engage with and involve the wider community, to reduce contradictory messages and increase programme support. Furthermore, teachers should undergo extensive and comprehensive pre-programme training that addresses their attitudes and values, not just their knowledge.     

The policyscape of transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: a case study

ABSTRACT

In this paper, our purpose is to investigate policy informing texts and discourses referencing transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system. Drawing on scholarship from transgender, queer and policy studies, we highlight the interplay of progressive and conservative forces affecting the Western Australian education system’s commitment to supporting transgender and gender non-binary students. Based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) project, the paper constructs a Western Australian case study, which threads together the critical examination of policy informing texts, qualitative interview data and media discourses surrounding public narratives, such as the Safe School Coalition Australia’s attempt to implement a school program, which builds awareness about gender and sexual diversity. Emerging through the material, discursive and spatial elements of locales and networks, our case study has the potential to deepen knowledge regarding the heuristic capacity of employing policyscape as an analytic category. In this vein, we draw attention to the possibilities and challenges for re-conceptualizing gender and providing trans-affirmative school spaces that promote equality.     

Stepping out of our comfort zones: pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations in sexuality education

This paper discusses pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations using examples from a final assessment for an intensive elective unit called Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years. This unit critically examines gender/ power relations, the production of difference, heteronormativity and pleasure and desire, employing a feminist post-structural framework. Despite the focus on critical thinking, reflection and interrogating structural inequalities in this unit some students were resistant or unable to engage with this approach in their assessments, although appearing to do so in workshops. We consider the broad range of sexuality education discourses mobilised by this unit to try to make sense of what looks like resistance but may be something more complex and difficult to negotiate. The paper ends with a consideration of some of the implications of this approach for practice.     

Changes in returns to education in India, 1983–94: by gender, age-cohort and location

There is hardly any estimate of the monetary returns to schooling in the labor market in India based on national level representative data for the recent period. This paper provides estimates of the returns to education in wage employment in India by gender, age cohort and location (rural–urban) for the most recent period 1993/4, and also evaluates the changes in returns over a period of time from 1983–94 using data from a large national level household survey. The estimates show that the returns to education increase up to the secondary level and decline thereafter. There is evidence of substantial gender and rural–urban differences in the returns to schooling. Investment in women's education, particularly at the middle, lower secondary and higher secondary levels, is more profitable than that for men in 1983 and also in 1993/4. The returns to women's primary and middle levels of education have declined while those to secondary and college levels have increased during the decade 1983–94.     

A question of gender justice: Exploring the linkages between women's unpaid care work,education, and gender equality

ActionAid International implemented an action-research programme on women's unpaid care work in rural Nepal from March 2011 to December 2012. This social empowerment methodology, Reflect, enabled 106 women to gain recognition for their unpaid care work through their own collection of time-use data. The literacy skills women acquired facilitated greater representation in community meetings calling for a reduction in their unpaid care work rather than shifting this work to girls. The article draws on Fraser's model of gender justice to explore how women's literacy, girls’ education and a more equitable balance of care work are needed to improve women's status.     

Frictions that activate change: dynamics of global to local non-governmental organizations for female education and empowerment in China,India, and Pakistan*

This article examines how non-governmental organizations create resources and spaces for girls and women’s education and empowerment in China, India and Pakistan – in the context of global expectations and local state relations as well as cultural norms. We examine the dynamics that foster female empowerment associated with educational attainment. Analysis showed that the five NGO’s responses to enabling and constraining local needs and demands gave rise to productive friction that activated positive development. We conclude that engaging local individuals as managers, teachers or facilitators who can negotiate with international actors and with the state is an effective foundation for maintaining a balance between being accountable to local contingencies and norms and to global social justice principles of the projects. These models indicated that “effective scale” might better be defined as a collaboration between the local and global, rather than “scaling up” in size.

International NGO partnerships with several of state organizations and local leadership can be a catalyst for fundamental change, subject to dynamic engagement with productive friction that activates educational empowerment and social change.     

GLBTIQ teachers in Australian education policy: protections,suspicions, and restrictions

Recognition of human rights on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status by the United Nations has led to the development of new policies concerning homophobia and transphobia in educational contexts. This paper examines new Australian education policies impacting gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) teachers. A policy review uncovered a range of protections for GLBTIQ teachers in contexts such as the State of Victoria, alongside restrictions. Experiences of policy discussed in pilot study data from surveys of 63 Victorian GLBTIQ teachers, and in-depth interviews with nine Victorian GLBTIQ teachers, revealed that GLBTIQ teachers were relatively unaware of the protections available to them, compared to their awareness of protections for students. Many teachers were out as lesbian or gay to some staff members but fewer had come out to students. Teachers in religious schools had more difficulties, causing some to leave the sector. Further promotion of protections and more research are recommended.     

Claiming modernity through clothing: gender and education in Pakistani Muslim and Indian Hindu communities

Through focusing on forms of clothing, this article reveals how educated women from marginalized communities in Pakistan and India made differential claims to being modern. Our analysis of two ethnographic studies shows how the participants mobilized their subjectivities as modern and educated women through a distinction between ‘local modern’ and ‘local traditional’. In this article, our goal is not to define modernity, but instead to illuminate what it meant to be modern in both contexts. We integrate the narratives of young, rural Muslim women in Pakistan with those of young, rural Hindu women in India to disrupt the linear telling of the production of universal and homogenous modernity through education.     

The impact of drop-in centers on the health of street children in New Delhi,India: A cross-sectional study

Objectives(1) To determine whether street children who visit drop-in centers experience better physical and mental health, and engage in less substance use than street children who do not visit centers. (2) To determine whether the duration of attendance at a center has an impact on the above outcomes.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study with 69 street children from two drop-in centers in New Delhi, India (attenders) and a comparison group of 65 street children who did not visit drop-in centers (non-attenders). We used pretested questionnaires to assess their physical health, substance use status and mental health.ResultsAttenders experienced fewer ill health outcomes, engaged in less substance use, and had better mental health outcomes than non-attenders (p < 0.01). For every month of attendance at a drop-in center, street children experienced 2.1% (95% CI 0% to 4.1%, p = 0.05) fewer ill health outcomes per month and used 4.6% (95% CI 1.3% to 8%, p = 0.01) fewer substances. Street children were also less likely to have been a current substance user than a never substance user for every additional month of attendance at a center (OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.66–0.96, p = 0.02). Duration of drop-in center attendance was not a significant factor in predicting mental health problems.ConclusionDrop-in centers may improve the physical health of street children and reduce their substance abuse. Rigorous longitudinal studies are needed to better determine if drop-in centers impact the health and substance use status of street children in LMICs.     

Buzzwords at play: gender,education, and political participation in Kenya

The discourse around development is full of buzzwords, including gender and a myriad of variants that underscore the importance of development policies addressing gender imbalances. Despite their prevalence in development policy and research, terminology related to gender is often used broadly, inappropriately, and without nuance. For international education policy in particular, discussions related to gender equality and equity in education are engaged in such a way that assumes shared meanings between policy designers and policy recipients. Using Kenya as a site of analysis, and in the spirit of a vertical case study for data collection, this study explores how the abstractness of a buzzword functions in the microcosm of the school classroom. In comparing gendered representations in textbooks with students' perceptions of those representations to explore how development discourse plays out in Kenyan schools, findings here demonstrate that there is minimal impact due to textbooks' mixed messages, reinforcing women's marginal position in community and political engagement and demonstrating that broad-based understandings of gender empowerment are not always translated in application.     

Global frameworks,local contingencies: policy translations and education development in India

Policies and programmes pursuing the universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in developing nations have been influenced by a set of complex forces in international, state, and local arenas. This paper explores how a large‐scale standardised assessment programme shaped by international and market‐oriented discourses has been differently re‐worked in the south Indian state of Karnataka. We draw on observation and interview data with educators and administrators to shed some light on their roles in reconstituting the meaning and practice of this programme. The intended frameworks of ‘borrowed’ education policies are not always reproduced or sustained in local contexts. Our paper shows how policies, rather than ‘borrowed’ from one context to another, undergo a process of ‘translation’ involving the contextualisation and inevitable transformation of policies.     

Exploring the interconnections between adult education,militarism, and gender: implications for our field

This article reviews and expands on two books that focus on women's experiences of war and militarism, written from interdisciplinary perspectives based on women's studies, political science and international relations. The article explores the main tenets of militarism, neoliberalism and gender oppression as discussed in the books, adding a learning lens to the analysis. It focuses on the importance of engaging with the concept of militarism in order to explore its interactions with everyday learning and adult education.     

Finding a plausible option for revitalising agricultural higher education in India: a systematic review

The objectives of this paper were to explore the existing status of agricultural higher education in India, application of marketing concepts in similar institutions and to find the most appropriate marketing concept to make agricultural higher education more competitive. Extensive searches of relevant agricultural education, business management and higher educational data bases were made. It was found that agricultural higher education in India is stagnant and is facing an identity crisis among its stakeholders. Marketing theories and concepts which are now being applied in higher education across the globe have not been thought of in the context of agriculture education. A review of the literature suggested that considering the objectives, the multiplicity of stakeholders and the nature of public-funded agricultural education, marketing orientation would be most appropriate. Based on the experiences of similar institutions, the paper suggests a three-level strategy for the implementation of marketing orientation in institutions of agricultural higher education.     

Vocational education and training in India: a labour market perspective

Skill development has been a major policy agenda in several countries and there is a lot of emphasis on the promotion of vocational education and training (VET) programmes. This paper investigates the labour market outcomes of the vocationally trained population in India using the data from a nationally representative survey on employment and unemployment. We find that a large section of the population in the age group 15–59 years does not have any kind of formal training. Among the VET holders, a large share is accounted for by non-formal trainees. Quite a high proportion of formal trainees in the workforce remain unemployed reflecting underutilisation of human resource. We also examine the extent to which individuals’ training matches their occupational levels and find that overall about two-thirds of the trainees are employed in occupations related to the field of training. Further, we compare the returns to general secondary and vocational education streams using the standard earnings function accounting for the sample selection bias. Our findings show that the relative returns to vocational education is higher than that to general secondary education.