why should holidays come in the way of school?' situating

Article

‘Why Should Holidays Come in the Way of School?’ Situating Girls’ Experiences of Schooling

Sangeeta Roy1

Abstract

This article explores girls’ experiences of schooling in a cluster of villages in the Mahabubnagar district in Telangana, India, arguing that the processual conception of schooling is one that commences before the access of girls to school. It includes the social learning of distributive justice through family, community and religion that influences girls’ perceptions of differential entitlements to educational resources due to their gender. These perceptions are simultaneously reinforced and contested by the school, contouring their engagement with educational resources. Drawing from the theoretical frame of feminist standpoint epistemology this study uses interviews and focus group discussions to engage with its participants. It focuses on the specificities of individual assertions and contestations of girls, as well as the complex responses of affirmation and injunctions of parents, teachers and other members of the community who impact their experiences. In doing so it marks a departure from the linear rhetoric of the dismal experiences of girls and boys in government schools in India.

Keywords

Access, experiences, girls, schooling

Indian Journal of Gender Studies22(2) 170–193

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1Research Scholar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, India.

Corresponding author: Sangeeta Roy, Tata Institute of Social Sciences , S.R. Sankaran Block, 2nd Floor, APARD (Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development), Hyderabad, Telangana 500 030, India. E-mail: [email protected]

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Context

This paper explores girls’ experiences of schooling in a cluster of villages in the Mahabubnagar district in Telangana, India, situating the processual conception of schooling as one that commences before the access of girls to school. The perception of ‘experiences’ entails complex processes of ‘cultural imprinting’1 on girls mediated by the institutions of family, community and religion and later, the school. While ‘cultural imprinting’ connotes ‘a sense of inevitability and depth in the impact made on the mind and behaviour of girls by the regime of ritual and restrictions placed upon them’ (Kumar, 2010, p. 81), this paper argues that this process is not linear. Schooling thus involves institutions along with the school, within which girls are required to engage in complex processes of contestation and acquiescence around existing cultural discourses of femininity. In fact, competing messages of distributive justice that girls learn from these institutions influence their possibility for learning in the school environment. These vying messages are con-formed to and contested by girls as they negotiate various institutional structures so as to continue with school. The central questions informing this paper are: How do social and economic realities mediate the access and continuance of girls within the school environment? How do religious and cultural factors impact girls’ retention, aspirations for higher education and performance? What are the factors within the school environment that support or thwart girls retention in school?

In fact, the discourse around girls’ education in India, particularly their access to school,2 has been subsumed within contentions that situate the schooling subject to a position of liminality in the process of schooling. This marginal location of girls, with regard to discussions of their education, has carried over from the colonial discourse of the late 19th century (Chatterjee, 1989; Seth, 2007, pp. 129–158), and later, the development discourse of post-Independence India. This experience of marginality is owing to the nature of instrumentality that is intrinsic to the argument for education of girls in public policy and popular discourse. Thus, girls’ education within the development paradigm is ‘regarded as a priority, not only because it supposedly empowers girls themselves but because it also facilitates political and human development (such as enhanced democracy, and lowered fertility and mortality rates) and provides the context of economic development’ (Jeffery, 2005, p. 19). However, despite the argument that ‘Girls educa-tion needs to be looked at in a far wider and a more complex perspective



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than what is generally applied with reference to social policy goals …’ (Kumar, 2010, p. 75), instrumental ends to attain specific outcomes may operate towards the achievement of intrinsic aims premised on the substantive nature of equality.

A focus on girls’ experiences of schooling foregrounds the intrinsic value of ‘experience’ that is impacted both by the immediate environ-ment of the family, religion and community, as well as by policies that affect educational and economic opportunities. The realisation of policy objectives in education in post-Independence India becomes particularly relevant for individuals and groups at the margins owing to their experience of complex forms of subordination. While women constitute 48 per cent of the total population in India out of which 46 per cent are illiterate according to the 2001 census (Bandyopadhyay and Subrahmanian, 2011, p. 124), the percentages of illiterate women among Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Castes and Muslim popu- lations are high in comparison to women from higher castes. Thus, engaging with schooling experiences of girls from social and economic margins is pertinent as ‘… gender inequalities intensify with poverty, caste inequalities, and geographical location particularly in under- developed rural areas’ (ibid., p. 125).

This paper draws upon Kumar (2010) and Majumdar (2011) for its theoretical frame. It uses Kumar’s (2010) argument that ‘educational experience’ of girls is impacted by what ‘they have already “learnt” at home about the differential meaning for the two sexes’ (p. 75). Kumar’s assertions are strengthened by Majumdar (2011) as she delineates that

structural inequalities … in relation to girls’ schooling [are a] combination of family neglect (as evident through differential attitudes of the family to the education of sons and daughters), social constraint (in the forms of prac-tices of child marriage, child bearing , girls’ seclusion and segregation and so on), and above all the unconcern of the colonial government with female education. (Majumdar, 2011, p. 215 as cited in S. Sen (2002); Forbes, 2007)

These ideas enabled a conceptualisation of ‘schooling’ as a process distinct from that of ‘school’ and emphasised the interface of the school with other social institutions and the simultaneous situatedness of students within them. This complex situatedness enables the equally complex informing and contesting of gendered socialisations. In fact, in lending primacy to experiences of economically poor, Scheduled and Other Backward Castes and Muslim girls in a rural context, this study



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situates the intrinsic value of school and education and what it can accord in their lives beyond the instrumental indicators in which the girls by extension would fare poorly. This study in its analysis of the responses of girls along with other stakeholders such as family, religious representa-tives, teachers and community outlines the possibilities and challenges for attainment and retention of girls in school from rural disadvantaged communities who are also first generation learners.

Locating the Study

Much of the current and extant literature, particularly primary studies on girls’ experiences of schooling engages with the perceptual range of ‘schooling’ that focus particularly on the premise of the school with specific emphasis on pedagogy and exchanges within the classroom. This focus is inept at conceiving that what is involved in ‘schooling’ or ‘the experience of schooling’ is also informed by institutions other than that of the school. The processual conception of ‘schooling’ as one that is embedded within various institutions rather than a discrete cluster of actions within the arena of the classroom become pertinent particularly in the context of girls’ gendered experiences. This argument acquires primacy owing to the primary mediation of the family, community and religion in the education of children and particularly that of girls in developing countries. Karlekar (2005) in her discussion on educational structures argues that ‘Decisions on whether a girl … is to have access to education are part of family ideologies’ (p. 246). In fact, mediation of stakeholders often informs the perceptions of girls of differential entitle-ments to educational resources owing to their gender, though the percep-tions of entitlements are simultaneously reinforced and contested by these institutions along with the school. Thus the understanding of the possibility of school that is intertwined with the girls’ own instrumental and intrinsic value of themselves is determined to a large extent by the social learning of distributive justice3 through the family, community and religion, even before school begins which makes it imperative to expand the meaning of schooling. These are arguments that this article attempts to make through the explication of data gathered during the study. In fact, literature on girls and schooling, despite focus on unequal gender relations and discrimination in resource allocation within the household in contrast to the school environment, does not make an effort at understanding girls’ experiences within the institutions of the




family, religion, the school and the community at large. This article also argues that gendered socialisations towards schooling may be discerned through the responses of stakeholders thereby addressing the limitation in literature in which students and their families become an inconspicu-ous presence as has also been emphasised by Jeffrey (2005, p. 14) in her discussion on educational regimes.

It also addresses the relatively less engaged area in literature on the enabling factors and processes that create possibilities for educational attainment and retention of girls from rural, disadvantaged communities who are also first generation learners. In fact, the rhetoric of the dismal conditions of government schools in the country entrenched in systemic apathy of teachers, despite its material implications, have, as Jeffery (2005) argues assumed ‘mythic proportions’ (p. 95), such that any dis-cussion on school and schooling within academia and popular discourse is initiated on this presumption and may not take into consideration the specificities of individual assertions and contestations of girls, parents, teachers and other members of the community who contribute to suste-nance of girls in school and empower the experience of schooling. These specificities often obfuscate the individual endeavours of teachers, students and families that this study aims at bringing to the fore.

The Field

Data for this paper was collected in the Mamidipally Gram Panchayat which comprises six villages and is located at the Kothur Mandal of the Mahabubnagar district in Telangana. Mahabubnagar ranks as one of the lowest in Human Development Indicators in comparison to the other districts in Andhra Pradesh. (Data for this study was collected before the division of the state of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.) According to the Census 2011, Female Literacy Rate in Andhra Pradesh was 59.7 per cent, lower than the national average of 65.46 per cent. The Mamidipally Gram Panchayat reflects the national trends of (i) skewed literacy rates to the disadvantage of females along with (ii) the decreasing presence of girls with increasing levels in education.4 Of the total population of the panchayat, Scheduled Castes comprised 22.7 per cent of the population, OBCs comprised 48.5 per cent and the other castes comprised 28.7 per cent of the population.5 The Scheduled Caste girls interviewed belonged to Mala, Madiga or Chamar castes.



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In terms of ownership of land, the 2012–2013 report outlines that of all the hamlets taken together, about 31 per cent of the population in the six villages are landless. Of all hamlets taken together, 39 per cent are engaged in farming and 23 per cent in agricultural labour (this figure excludes retired persons, pensioners, unpaid family workers and those not classified by occupation). It is important to note that female work participation is high in these two occupations indicating feminisa-tion of agriculture as women agricultural labourers significantly out-number males. The high figure may also be due to the fact that many girls combine school with labour to support the economic situation of their families. The number of school-going children is high as 97.6 per cent were in school during the survey, of which there were 104 boys and 142 girls in government schools and 142 boys and 134 girls in private schools. Thus there were more boys than girls in private school.

Methodology

The study used the theoretical frame of feminist standpoint epistemology6 and focused on listening to the girls who are at the social and economic peripheries of distributive justice with dismal possibilities for long- term educational attainment. Data on school was gleaned from inter-views of students, teachers and parents. The choice of participants was partially based on a previous profiling of the Mamidipally villages7 that elicited quantitative data, in various areas, including education. A purposive sample of 12 girls studying in the Zila Parishad High School was chosen from across the six villages of the panchayat. Girls from Classes 8 and 9 were identified for the interviews as it is at this age— 13–15 years—that they become conscious of the nature of sanctions from their families regarding their education after Class 10 including issues of commuting on public transport to college. It was important to interview girls in this age group as shortly after, marriage is on the anvil. The parents of all 12 girls were also interviewed. Two focus group dis-cussions were conducted with girls of Classes 8 and 9, respectively, as well as a focus group discussion was organised with both boys and girls of these classes. The interviews were conducted at the residence of the girls except in one case when the participant, a girl studying in Class 9 came to meet the researcher at her place of stay. The in-depth interviews with the girls and their parents were conducted at their homes and the focus group discussions were held at the school. Several other brief con-versations and unstructured discussions with the girls also offered some




pertinent insights. These conversations often took place during recess hours in the school, after school hours in the classrooms, and sometimes on their way home when the girls accompanied the researcher to Mamidipally village, where she was staying during field work. Along with parents, interviews were also conducted with three teachers and the Maulvi of the madrasa. The Maulvi was included as a number of Muslim girls had either previously attended regular classes after school at the madrasa when they were younger or were still attending them during the study. Though the methodology used purposive sampling, a con-scious attempt was made to ensure heterogeneity in terms of residence, family structure particularly, number of siblings and their various enrol-ment patterns, and religion. At the time of the interview apart from three boys, all girls in Classes 8 and 9 were either from the Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Castes or were Muslims. The interviews were conducted in Hindi and Telugu with the assistance of a translator. Ethical safeguards were ensured through the entire research process, from conception to the analysis of data.8

Thematic Analysis of Participants’ Responses

The data derived from the interviews has been analysed according to three overarching themes. These are (i) competing continuums of disciplining and contestation, (ii) school as the possibility to breach the ‘private’ and (iii) gendered differentials in schooling experiences.

Competing Continuums of Disciplining and Contestation

A range of disciplining proscriptions informed by the school, the home and the community contours the responses of girls on the ways in which they experience the process of schooling. These proscriptions are adhered to or contested in overt and subtle ways and are often more complex in their expression than distinct actions or articulations. Disciplinary injunctions on girls are in keeping with norms of appropriate feminine behaviour. While transgressions if brought to the notice of adults are accompanied by punitive measures, girls’ resistances are common as the institutions of family, school and religion and also the community offer competing messages to them.

Embodied and more blatant disciplining mechanisms are an aspect of the structure and everyday social practices in school as visible through



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the organisation of sex-segregated seating arrangements within the classroom, postures of sitting, sex-segregated games during sports hour, system of corporal punishment, limiting interaction with boys beyond what is considered acceptable, practices around teaching and learning, and around consumption of food within the school. The banal nature of these and other coercive mechanisms enables the school to institutional-ise them as has also been argued by Alam (2013) who views that ‘control over students’ ‘are effected through … routine social practices’ (p. 234). In fact, ‘discipline’ as a term was usual in the responses of girls as one of the significant outcomes in their perception of school. During interviews and group discussions girls understood the term ‘discipline’ to mean ‘keeping quiet unless required to talk’, ‘not shouting’ ‘not fighting with others’, ‘not playing with boys’, ‘studying in class’, ‘respecting elders and doing whatever they ask for’ and legitimately receiving corporal punishment when these norms are breached. These, Balagopalan (2005) says, are almost scripted responses that outline an intrinsic connection between strictness and learning (p. 92). In fact, reinforcement of ‘feminine submissiveness’ contrary to the values of ‘egalitarianism’ often underlies the ‘ideology of girls’ schools’ (Karlekar, 2005, p. 245). Again, disciplining is most articulated in the context of nature of time and engagement in studies. Girls who were studying from their text-books or solving problems, concentrating in class, completing home-work and approaching teachers with questions on the various subjects were commended by the teachers as ‘the most disciplined’ and ‘good’ during interaction with the researcher. This is corroborated by the stu-dents of Class 9 when they often referred to the academically best girls and those performing well in specific subjects as the ‘most disciplined’. The term ‘discipline’, used interchangeably with the words ‘value’, ‘respect’ and ‘morality’ in Telugu, is indicative of a ‘hidden curriculum’ to socialise girls into feminine demureness. Aruna’s pithy remark ‘At school we learn to live and be the way others want us to’ is significant. Many of these disciplining mechanisms are difficult to contest and breaching them would mean punitive measures (Benei, 2005; Hameed, 2005; MacDougall in Jeffery, 2005) to argue that ‘Children also learn the power of authoritative adults through the punishment regimes meted out to pupils who are insufficiently respectful…’ (p. 30) and through this learn the boundaries of legitimate behaviour.

‘Discipline’ and its equivalent terms figure in the responses of the boys only in relation to girls. Azhar, in Class 9, asserts in a dismissive tone, ‘The girls in this class are quite unlike how they are in other schools and how they should be… They are rather noisy. They talk excessively.




This is not the way girls should behave.’ Again, the behaviour of some girls are endorsed, as Azhar says pointing to a fellow student in class, ‘She is a good girl. She is very good in studies and very calm and silent. She does not quarrel.’ Here, it is interesting that Azhar’s delineation of a ‘good girl’ is not only one who performs well in class but also conforms to the norms of femininity. In contrast to that of the teachers, who syn-onymously refer to the well performing girls as ‘good’, Azhar’s remark recalls Aruna’s response affirming that ideas of freedom and contestation of debasing gendered conventions may not be intrinsic to the conception of girls’ education in patriarchal societies. Thus, ‘the structure of gender relations … sets the outer limits within which education might exercise its limited roles’ (Kumar, 2010, p. 80). As the girls eagerly articulated their opinion on life in school, Azhar, Alam and some other boys told the researcher, ‘… because you are encouraging them and not disciplining them to either talk less or to talk softly, they are almost out of control…’ These remarks, made apparently in jest were accompanied with mockery and laughter—though some of the girls responded with curt replies. Such comments from peers of the opposite gender may be an important influence in the formation and reinforcement of gender identity and might even exercise ‘control’ over girls in an attempt to feminise them. Recognition and dismissal of particular actions are also ways in which girls learn the immediate boundaries of accepta-bility as well as their value as individuals in the larger culture (Sen, 2000, p. 18). Azhar and Alam’s remarks are not dissimilar to the retort of a boy in a primary school in West Bengal who intercepted the researcher’s query to a girl from his class about her future dreams with ‘she will be married’ (Majumdar, 2011); he was reaffirming ‘the social reality he was familiar with, where 60 per cent adolescent girls are married off by the age of eighteen years of age, or younger’ (p. 213). Boys assume a superior hierarchical position, and their ridiculing them may also be perceived as an effort to assert authority. Such attitudes have been observed in school processes across various developing countries (Plan, 2012).

However, transgressions abound. During the recess hour, girls and boys from Classes 8 and 9 were observed teasing and engaging in light banter with each other. Some girls spoke about friends engaged in romantic affiliations with boys in the same class or in other classes. Salma in Class 9 said, ‘I do not interact with the boys. I also refrain from talking to girls who are with boys during breaks or after school … you know what I mean … girls who are with boys are not liked by the teachers as well. None of the girls interact with boys during the class



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hours as it is not acceptable.’ The headmaster rued the change in the attitude of girls after Class 7 saying,

I don’t understand what happens to these girls once they reach Class 7. I am not saying that they are no longer interested in studies. No, they continue to do well but many of them also begin to have romantic affiliations with boys despite the strict discipline in school. Girls have also eloped and have had interreligious marriages in previous years … this brings shame to the villages. People may also accuse the school …

Thus breaching of sex-segregated disciplining codes among girls was not unusual. In fact, many girls who may not be involved in romantic affiliations also interact with boys taunting each other. During the lunch recess, Alam told the researcher that the girls did not understand or show interest in football or cricket to which Razia retorted, ‘Why should I need to be interested in football and cricket? To watch some men play-ing? What relevance does it have for me to watch the men playing on TV? And why should girls have to watch these men and waste their time?’ Many of the girls echoed Razia’s response, clapping, others elated and chuckling at her remark. Thus, despite the instructions of ‘not fighting’ with classmates and the apparent ‘calm’ during classes, latent hostilities were expressed and exchanged outside class hours. Razia’s assertion was significant as she came from a family with meagre social and economic resources in comparison to Alam, the son of an urban cloth merchant, and the only student in Class 9 who explicitly articulated his academic aspirations. Similar curt exchanges were observed between the girls and the boys during focus group discussions. When some boys tried to interrupt the girls who were talking to the researcher, one of them said,

I am saying to didi (the researcher, meaning ‘elder sister’) what I feel … and you can leave the classroom or be anywhere you wish if you want to inter-rupt me … you don’t have to worry if I am wrong … there is no correct or incorrect way (pause)… these are my thoughts…

Some of the younger girls in Class 6 said that they often have physical fights with the boys in the class over lost stationary and torn books and differences in opinion. Thus, girls frequently contested an essential feminine image that is enforced upon them under the garb of ‘school discipline’ and ‘school rules’. While many of the injunctions were endorsed simultaneously by the school, family and religion, disciplining of girls through various institutions into the feminine were not linear and




competing messages about gendered surveillances were evident in the responses of girls. For instance, while academically well performing girls are considered ‘good’ and commended within school, families expect them to do household and other chores or religious duties, only after which they are allowed to study.

Disciplining of the female body as a precondition to education was articulated by the Maulvi at the mosque. For him, tareeka (manners) and tehzeeb (etiquette) were essential in chalan (behaviour). He said,

Studying well is also about the way one conducts oneself every day. Students should wake up very early, have a bath, wear clean clothes, and learn to sit in particular posture [he demonstrated this as he explained] to prepare themselves for study. Unless they know how to sit, they will not be able to read.

Recounting his days as a student at a madrasa in Uttar Pradesh, India, he endorsed the system of corporal punishment and consequently that of complete submission to the mentor. He said, ‘We were severely punished if we failed to conform to the rules of the madrasa which is why we learnt our lessons well. We were very, very scared. People are no longer scared of their mentors and thus there are fewer diligent students.’ In Alam’s (2013) study as well there is mention of severe corporal punish-ment when there was a breach of norms or children did not study. The control and surveillance that the Maulvi exercised among the Muslim population of the six villages particularly with regard to the disciplining of girls was borne out in the interviews with the parents and even the teachers.

In fact, the Maulvi’s disapproval of girls’ access to public spaces for the purposes of education is explicit when he said,

Within our religion, it is an act of transgression for grown up girls to venture out of home. I blame the mothers for encouraging them to travel to the nearest town for school. I encourage girl children to study but by remaining within their demarcated confines. I think a girl should wear the burqa when they are in the public, never interact with a man other than her father or brother, walk with her head lowered, cover herself till her toe … However, the real purdah (veil) are the eyelids and these are open… When I travel to the city in public transport I am alarmed at the shamelessness of the manner in which girls conduct themselves with boys. (emphasis added)

Such views were also expressed by the teachers. The mathematics teacher said,



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When I go to Shadnagar, I have seen our girls behaving shamelessly on the bus and elsewhere. They don’t recognise me. What can I say? You see most of the early marriages in this village and surrounding villages are organised to prevent them from bringing shame to the family.

The possibilities of romantic and sexual liaisons were greatly feared. In fact, punitive measures for transgressions were overt as several girls had older siblings whose education has been discontinued, for such actual and accused alliances. Lakshmi, in Class 6 who travelled home from school with the researcher, said,

I wish there was a high school in the vicinity of the village … a girl in our neighbourhood was sent to the school in Shadnagar—after which boys started to make calls at her home … my mother and other women discuss these incidents and may not send me to high school…

Anxiety over sexuality was a central reason that influenced girls’ access to school, coupled with factors such as distance from home, availability of transportation, and questions of safety (see also Plan, 2012, p. 39). The fear of romantic relationships of girls with boys across castes and religions not only imposed restrictions on everyday mobility of girls but also influenced decisions around their admission to colleges in Shadnagar, the nearest town. As custodians of family honour, girls are often subject to more injunctions in an environment already threatened with breach (Plan, 2012, p. 60).

Despite religious injunctions, not all families affirmed the religious strictures outlined by the Maulvi particularly as they sent their daughters to school and would perhaps also support their further education if there were colleges in the vicinity of the six villages. Razia’s mother told the researcher, ‘The Maulvi says many things … but people are free to take their own decisions … Razia used to attend classes at the mosque when younger but now where is the time for such things …?’ Her father said ‘… the Maulvi does what he is supposed to do and we are doing what we decide to do …’ It is important here to mention that a year earlier Razia’s elder sister eloped a day before her marriage with a Hindu boy, and now lived in the same village following Hindu customs. Her parents’ responses were perhaps coloured by the partial social ostracism they faced for a while by other Muslim families—encouraged by the Maulvi.

Within the space of the household, girl children are required to per-form many tasks so as to gain permission to attend school or to engage




with studies at home. These are cleaning and scrubbing floors, collecting faggot, preparing a fire at the mud oven, cleaning and chopping vegeta-bles, and cooking, washing clothes, caring for younger siblings or younger children of other members in the family, and also working as landless labourers. In some instances these tasks are done along with other siblings. Again, based on the requirements of families, the burden on some girls may be less than those of others. In fact, the nature of work is not significantly different in Hindu families. In Muslim families a pre-condition to education was the reading of the Koran and parents often admonished the girls saying that studies would be discontinued if they did not engage with the Koran or attend the Maulvi’s classes. Interestingly, two girls whispered during the interview with their parents, that they opened the Koran, pretending to study it until it was time to turn to their school books. The covert nature of their resistance was evident as they giggled softly, nudging each other while their mother explained the value of reading the Koran. These girls were also disinterested in the Maulvi’s religious instructions.

The manner in which girls negotiated their lives through strictures from family, school and religion is pertinent as these enabled them to explore the meaning of schooling. While gendered structures attempted to feminise women, these were met with resistance in both explicit and subtle ways. Thus, contestation was played out against the backdrop of modes of disciplining.

School as the Possibility to Breach the ‘Private’

Biological essentialism has assigned the private sphere to women and the public to men (Pateman, 1989). Dichotomies such as nature and culture, feminine and masculine, inner and outer, morality and power operate through the injunctions of various institutions. Thus, the ques-tion of girls’ access to school as one that contests this divide has been central to women’s education,9 and linked to historical controversies over the resolution of ‘the woman’s question’ during the freedom move-ment. This led to the separation of the domain of culture into two spheres—the material and the spiritual10—and constructed women as the repository of the spiritual shoring up their existing social roles in the private or the home.

This intrinsic association of girls with the ‘private’ is both reinforced and breached not only by the girls themselves but also in complex ways by the school through symbolic, ideological and material processes. The



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school becomes the space where patriarchal structures of the home may be negotiated. For many girls it is a space where they become conscious of existent inequalities in the household and often rebel against the norms of the home ‘carrying their anger over unjust treatment’ (Papanek, 1990, p. 163). In many instances the space of the school is often a haven, in contrast to the unrelenting tasks of home: Nazia said, ‘I like to come to school but unfortunately the Saturdays, Sundays and summer holidays always interrupt my school days.’ Ameena seconds her opinion with a sort of annoyance, ‘School ko jana, school se ana. Ye chuttiyan kaiko aati hai beeech mein?’ (Between going and coming to school, why should the holidays come in the way?) During vacations I wait eagerly for school to reopen. Aalia of Class 9 added, ‘If there is a holiday I feel sad … I feel like going to school even during vacations … during school hours I do not have to wash clothes, clean the house, cook, wash utensils, do other household chores or work in the field or take care of my uncle’s daughter.’ Seeema, Chitra and Karuna from Classes 6 and 7 together said, ‘…during holidays, we come and spend time in school premises, talking to each other, chatting and sharing. Sometimes we do not inform people at home that it is a holiday (giggles)…’. Teachers corroborate that they are unable to address the complaint of parents about their daughters stealing away to school on holidays on the pretext of work. In fact, this almost obsessive attachment to school needs to be viewed against the backdrop of rigorous household tasks assigned to many girls ‘…Going to school is often the only legitimate opportunity to be away from the vicinity of their homes without family members or relatives’ and ‘the only prolonged period free of domestic work and gendered service demands’ (Page, 2005, p. 193). However, girls’ responses in the Mamidipally Zilla Parishad High School were quite contrary to Page’s (2005) view that the hours of study or lessons at school are ‘regimented’ and a ‘price’ to be paid for access to freedom. For many girls who per-form well, some of them ranking first or second in class, the space of the school is perhaps the only one in which they were commended and expe-rienced a sense of achievement and regard in contrast to their situation at home. For many well-performing older girls in Classes 8 and 9 who would not be sent to the town after the completion of Class10, it is the only possibility of being recognised and valued equally or more than the boys in their class.

However, the experience of school was not uniformly pleasant. Students and teachers collectively pointed to the need for better infra-structure especially a boundary wall, more rooms for classes and the science laboratory, and toilets for girls. The four computers were burgled




the year before and could not be replaced owing to budgetary constraint. The school also had a dearth of teachers and the headmaster had to continually arrange funds to employ an English teacher. Often, as there was no teacher in the class, the few teachers had to juggle their duties. Overall, school reinforced the dominant norms of expected femi-nine behaviour even though similar academic expectations from girls as from boys provided the girls an egalitarian space as opposed to the environment at home.

This visible enthusiasm for school among all the students interviewed was primarily because of the engagement of teachers in the everyday learning experiences of the girls. The headmaster and the other teachers said that the girls in the school ranked high at the state level examina-tions and did so with little resources. In fact, girls performed better than boys almost each year and received academic scholarships and recogni-tion from the teachers at school. The students in turn said that the teachers in the school were available for academic assistance even after school hours. For instance, the mathematics teacher only returned home to the city on weekends so as to be able to assist students in the surrounding villages. While this help was through private tuitions for economically solvent students, for other students, there was out of school assistance without additional expenses. In fact, the mathematics teacher helped in other subjects as well. Parents of girls also con- firmed that they were compelled to send their daughters to school as often, teachers enquired about their well-being by visiting or making telephone calls to neighbours every time they were absent. The school also created an environment of interest in learning; a girl commented, ‘…my brother—he was put to work because he was disinterested for a while. I too was not interested while in the junior classes. But as I came to high school I became interested in various subjects. We need time to understand and value what we are studying.’ During the interviews, many girls were observed exchanging pleasantries and talking to teachers freely. Contrary to the general belief across the country on the midday meal as an impetus for attendance, many girls in the school did not eat it either due to caste proscriptions or because of traditional injunctions against women eating in the public space. Zainab said, ‘it seems strange to eat in the open … isn’t it?’

The mathematics teacher discussed in some detail the perspective of parents towards their daughters’ education,

Even when girls study hard and are able to say things beyond the prescribed syllabus of the school, parents do not show interest in their studies … there are many absentees as well … when I visit and ask parents they say, ‘She had



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to do other work and there was nobody at home’ … some parents also ask them not to go to school … 60–70 per cent parents are this way…. One girl confided to me that her parents do not trust her when she says that she is going to school. I was extremely sad on hearing this…

He continued, ‘In the last year, five girls were married but Head sir and I encouraged them to write the final examination for Class10 by organis-ing home tuitions for them. They performed well…’

During a focus group discussion with girls, all with the exception of one reiterated school was almost a recreational space. In fact, some girls who had shifted from the private school to the government high school said, ‘This school is spacious and free unlike the private school which appears more like a household setting.’

For many girls, the school and its associative meanings signalled the possibility for mobility. Shipra in Class 8 said, ‘When one is educated, one can travel … to the high school, the college and be away from these villages…’ Lata added, ‘We learn in school what people have done in other places and at other times … I would not be scared to travel away from the village.’ The metaphors of mobility were emphasised yet again as Usha said, ‘The best thing about school is the news that we read aloud every morning during the assembly … about the things that happen everywhere. The news makes me feel very, very good … I wait to listen to it every day.’ For many girls, the school was also about the playground and being able to run and play various games. Parents, in many instances encouraged the possibility of school contesting the norms of the ‘private’. Reshma’s mother said,

I won’t listen to anyone even when people ask me to arrange her wedding. Her father compelled the elder daughter to get married. She is the youngest and an intelligent child. I shall not listen to my husband this time. I want her to study and travel to Shadnagar or even to Hyderabad to continue her educa-tion. Once she is educated she can get a job and become self sufficient.

Mobility was thus a central factor in the conception of school. In fact, many parents who said that they were willing to educate their youngest daughter after ensuring the marriage of all the older children, may be said to negotiate with community norms and practices to create opportunity for mobility.

The school was also the only space where girls interacted and engaged with boys of their age outside the circle of family and kin relations. It was also a space where they were able to meet girls from the same or the other villages and exchange ideas. Many girls who did not have




television at home got to know about various programmes from other girls and were thus able to find a source of entertainment through animated discussions.

Gender Differentials in Experiences of School

Gender differentials were significant in the school experience of girls. Norms of distributive justice indicate that girls are discriminated against in access to school and other resources, indicators of an unequal status in their respective societies. These norms while teaching ‘compulsory emotions’ to girls also make them into ‘rebels’ (Papanek, 1990). During focus group discussions of mixed groups, Manavi in Class 8, spoke of differential loads of work for boys and girls, saying,

There is always less work outside than within the house as they (boys) take orders and leave. Boys go out to the fields, and thus have less work to do. At home there is always one thing after the other being asked of us throughout the day … hence boys have more time to study.

While both boys and girls in less privileged families are engaged in some form of economic activity, girls at a much younger age than boys contribute to the gendered informal economy of the household in com-parison to boys and it is the ‘time burden of domestic work that is a particular issue’. The differential nature of work assigned to girls and boys has been observed in other developing countries as well (Plan, 2012, p. 53). Manavi’s response also affirmed that boys, despite their engagement in work could exert a measure of autonomy over at least part of their time as opposed to girls who apart from the time spent in school were under continual surveillance.

When the girls and boys were asked to outline the time wise division of various daily tasks, many of the boys started teasing and ridiculing the girls as they enumerated these. Some boys referred to everyday ‘work’ as ‘waking up in the morning’, ‘preparing for school’, ‘playing at school’, accompanied with mockery and laughter. With the exception of one boy who raised his hand amidst the clamour to say, ‘I too engage in doing almost all that the girls do at home…’, boys are often involved in a single, time bound and sometimes remunerative task. This may be at a poultry outlet, assisting a carpenter, taking cows to graze or working as landless labourer. Girls who assisted in the fields also did household chores. Boys and girls roared with laughter when asked if there were



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boys who did any of the household work that girls did every day—and if the girls would have liked them to engage in these tasks. Most of the boys responded, ‘…but we are boys…’ indicating an almost intrinsic impossibility between boys and housework. While some girls clapped, acknowledging the researcher’s question, others said, ‘…but housework is not boys’ work. Boys and girls have different designated work and just like girls cannot do work that boys perform, boys also should not do the work meant for girls…’ Clearly, gender roles were deeply imprinted in the psyches of the girls and boys. Many girls excused the unruly behav-iour of boys on grounds of these being intrinsic to their nature: Vaishnavi said, ‘They are boys … they will be wild…’

For many girls, the association of boys with the public sphere, syn-onymous with their masculine identities gave access to school a different meaning. ‘Coming to school is being like boys and going out of home…’, said Reshma gleefully. ‘I like the school … the way it looks … the space … the playground…’ mused Vaishnavi. While having access to school and by extension to the public was welcomed by girls, the same was not true in the responses of boys about the private, hence the home.

Again, attitudes of parents and siblings affect girls’ perceptions. In several interviews, parents said that they expected their sons to travel to the nearest town after Class 10 and enrol in college. After all, they were to become the breadwinners of families, though most parents also hoped to educate the youngest daughter. Reshma observed, ‘You know this is a strange village. Girls wish to study here but they are not encouraged. The boys are disinterested but they are encouraged to study.’ Salma’s sister, Shazia, who had scored exceptionally well in the Class 10 examinations but is about to get married, said, ‘Woh gentsaan hai na to us ko padhate … ladies ko nehi.’ (They are boys, isn’t it … which is why they are sent to school and not the girls.) When I asked, ‘aisa kyun hai?’ (Why is it this way?), she replied, ‘Ye log purane zamane ke hain is liye.’ (These people are traditional…that’s why…) She continued, pointing to her mother, ‘Apne bete ko bhejengi Shadnagar.’ (She will send her son to Shadnagar.) As this discussion was conducted before Shazia’s mother and other sib-lings, her ire against her mother who did not allow her to be enrolled in Class 11 was palpable. Parents also endorsed the many tasks that girls performed in the household with the retort ‘…they are girls. It is a good thing that they know how to do all these tasks, isn’t it? You will have to do these at your husband’s home. They get good practice.’ Girls too learnt the stipulations of cultural norms and thus prepared themselves for a life after marriage. In fact, the pressure to be married is so high that most girls in Classes 9 and 10 fell silent on being asked if they would be




able to study after Class 10. They stared vacantly at each other and at the boys, mumbling responses of uncertainty such as, ‘parents can tell’, ‘don’t know’, ‘can’t say…’. The opinion of many parents that studying leads girls to go astray, transgress norms and disregard authority are basically anxieties around their sexuality; such apprehensions and con-cerns are not expressed with reference to boys. In fact, the range of disciplining proscriptions laid down by the Maulvi and the teachers at school along with parents, related exclusively to girls; it was only on questioning the Maulvi towards the close of the interview on whether the same gendered norms applied for boys that he said, ‘Men also should not talk to women outside their kin. However, if men stare at or attempt to assault women, they have to repent and engage in prayer.’ At a differ-ent time though, he also said that, ‘…the girls travelling with boys in the bus while returning from Shadnagar are fallen in the eyes of Allah and are beyond redemption’. Interestingly, when asked about his life and experiences, the Maulvi admitted that he had had a ‘love marriage’, quickly adding that this was sanctioned by both families.

Girls who were the youngest daughters in a family with other female siblings who had discontinued studying, often negotiated with them to gain access to school. Vaishnavi began to cry towards the close of the interview as her elder sister was constantly ridiculing and taunting her throughout. When she said that with education ‘one can aspire to become either a doctor or engineer or a teacher’, her elder sister Karuna remarked ‘…so do you think you can become any of these? Who do you think you are … talking about yourself?’ When the girl asked to recount the specific lessons in life sciences that interested her, she was intercepted by Karuna again, ‘really … do these things interest you? Do you even understand them?’ This dismissive comment was accompanied with several gestures of mockery and dismissal as Vaishnavi began to cry saying, ‘I am just saying what I feel … why are you not letting me?’ The interview was abruptly discontinued. Many girls like Karuna whose education was put to an end owing to actual or accused alliances with men could experience a sense of hopelessness in an environment where school was the only regular and legitimate access to the public space. At home the entire day, engaged in house work and with restrictions against interacting with neighbours or friends, Karuna perhaps inadvert-ently expresses her resentment against Vaishnavi, who is the youngest in the family. Nazia also confided that the remarks by her elder sister, whose education was discontinued due to her relationship with a boy to whom she is now married, often upset her. Interestingly, many girls with brothers who have given up school are not subjected to such barbs;



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they were often employed in various skill-based factories and lived in Shadnagar, Hyderabad or other cities. With access to incomes and cities, some of them expressed keenness for their sisters’ higher education irrespective of their own academic failures as in the case of Aalia. Vaishnavi’s exchange with her sister also suggested that for girls to be able to articulate themselves without being intercepted by peers, siblings and other people was in sharp contrast to the experience of boys. The continued struggle of young girls to resist being silenced while at the same time silencing themselves to conform to gendered norms so as to gain access to school underscores both their rebellion on the one hand, and submission on the other.

Such perspectives towards girls’ education were also accompanied by material difficulties such as economic poverty, inaccessibility to consist-ent forms of livelihood, and untimely death of parents. Even among families with meagre resources, girls had brothers studying in private schools. This differential access to educational resources also makes it likely for boys to ridicule girls at the slightest pretext. Srinivas and Azhar who were in Class 9, responded to Reshma’s argument on the lack of encouragement for girls to attend school with ridicule, saying scornfully, ‘Parents do not trust the girls, because girls cannot be trusted. Parents feel that it is better to get them married.’ The argument that girls were not trustworthy expressed by a few of the research participants was perhaps a response to the fact that some girls had either eloped and got married or have had to discontinue school with the intervention of parents. Interestingly, there was no discussion about boys who had been in rela-tionships or have subsequently married those girls; on the other hand, all girls are subsumed within a cohort of potential ‘runaways’ and consequently a cause for apprehension.

Conclusion

This article explored the experiences of schooling of economically poor girls in a rural setting in the Mahabubnagar district in Telangana. Coming primarily from Scheduled Caste and Muslim communities each of the girls interviewed were first generation learners attending the only government school situated in a cluster of the six villages. Using the theoretical frame of feminist standpoint epistemology, the study was based on interviews and focus group discussions of girls, boys, parents, siblings, other family members and teachers. While the learning environ-ment and teachers at school made it an experience of possibility for girls




to perform commendably, their academic performance could be also deciphered as a sanction for public access and may operate almost as a pressure in their lives. Such sanctions are not only not required for boys, the terms on which they acquire access to the public space are also distinct from that of girls. In fact, the awareness of many girls about inequalities was strengthened when their academic achievement received approval from teachers, peers, and families who give credence to their views. Interestingly, unlike other existing academic writing on socialisation of girls in India and their experiences in school (Gupta, 2014; Kumar, 2010; Majumdar, 2011), which emphasise submission and fear within school and at home, findings from this research indicated a degree of rebelliousness. While such micro data cannot necessarily go against statistics around the performance of government schools and responses of various institutions, they do contest many truisms that have developed over time. Situating schooling as a process embedded within the institu-tions of family, community and religion, this article argues that girls’ experiences of school is informed by the complex processes of negotiat-ing with a range of stakeholders. It examines the epistemic space of experience and the competing messages of possibility and disappoint-ment that impact the educational opportunities of girls. The assertions of economically poor, rural girls who are first generation learners from scheduled castes or are Muslims attending the government school are pertinent, as they exemplify voices from the margins. In fact the articula-tions of the multiple stakeholders in this study are important as they delineate the nature of discrimination. Through interviews and focus group discussions, kinds of gendered surveillance and the processes of overt and tacit contestation that the girls exercised so as to be able to assert their autonomy were highlighted. Pertinent to the study was the possibility that the school accorded to the girls, despite its disciplining restrictions. In fact, the school created the possibility for a more gender egalitarian exchange and equipped girls to contest the norms of the private and access the possibility of educational opportunity.

Notes

1. See Kumar (2010) for a detailed explication of the term as a critical response to the concept of ‘socialisation’.

2. See Karlekar (1983) for a detailed explication around questions of access. 3. Papanek (1990) conceptualises the term to imply the social learning of dif-

ferential access to resources to children by age and gender. 4. Source: Mamidipally Field Survey (2012) conducted by Tata Institute of

Social Sciences, Hyderabad (Unpublished Data). at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 12, 2016ijg.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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5. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad Mamidipally Survey Report 2012–2013 (Unpublished Report).

6. In this context, the use of standpoint theory enables the understanding of the epistemic situatedness of school-going girls, their parents, teachers and the complex processes of socialisation and its explicit and subtle contes-tation by girls and other stakeholders. Standpoint epistemology also informs interviewing as a feminist tool that enables to bring to the fore, the situated voices of the participants to the reader without extrapolating the data. To this effect, attention has been paid to the processes of listening, preserv-ing, editing and writing of data drawing from Devault’s (2004) reflection on conceiving these tools as central to standpoint analysis such that what is not considered as ‘good quotes’ in conventional research may not be dispensed with to privilege a more sanitised and academic articulation of social pro-cesses (p. 235).

7. Report on Mamidipally Gram Panchayat Village Monograph conducted by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad (Unpublished Data).

8. Ethical safeguards were ensured in the various stages of the research from the conception of research questions to the analysis of data. Informed con-sent was ensured at every stage of the research process by explaining the various aspects of the consent form including the objective and nature of study to the research participants. Contact details of the researcher and the institution were given to the participants in cases when they asked for it. All interviews with the girls were conducted within a visible space and photographs and recording of interviews and conversations were restricted at the slight inkling that they were apprehensive of the process. The data was translated, transcribed and stored in word format with pseudonyms by the researcher. Participants were assured that confidentiality of their identi-ties would be observed throughout the process. In fact, photographs were not taken unless participants, particularly the girls at the school insisted on them. This effort was ensured to protect them from any conscious or uncon-scious harm and unforeseen risks. In some instances the interviews were not recorded and photographs not taken owing to the visible apprehensiveness of the participants even when they had not explicitly denied permission to take photographs. Ethical implications were also considered intrinsic to the process of research such that a conscious effort was made to ensure that the interactions particularly with the girls were pleasant and joyful and in many instances empowering. This was done by validating the responses of the girls particularly during interviews and focus group discussions whenever parents, siblings, other family members or the boys in the class tried to dis-miss, suppress, belittle their opinion or poke fun and mock at them. Given the already dismal circumstances in terms of access to education after Class 10, care was taken so that the interviews would not reinforce the feeling of girls or their parents of their inability to negotiate with cultural, financial and infrastructural obstacles in educational attainment. During interviews




and focus group discussions with the research participants, the researcher and translator suggested various scholarships and opportunities for enrol-ment into Class 11 and other educational possibilities. Again, during the process of research, some of the visits to the homes of children were made so as to not disappoint them and make them feel that other children who were interviewed were more privileged. The researcher and the translator also answered questions from the participants about their own life situation. In fact, despite attempts to ensure an egalitarian exchange it was difficult to override the existing hierarchies of caste, class, urban–rural divide and academic achievement in the interaction with the girls and other stakeholders.

9. Minault (1998) and Hasan and Menon (2005) discuss the range of safeguards instituted for Muslim girls for the purposes of creating access to school. These safeguards outline the construction and replication of the ‘private’ in the ‘public’ such that the norms of the ‘private’ may not be breached.

10. For a more detailed deliberation, see Chatterjee (1989) and Seth (2007).

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