Rachel Wahl

Reviewing responsibilities and renewing relationships: an intervention with men on violence against women in India

Violence against women is increasingly seen as a key womens rights issue in India. Some efforts to address it have started to engage men. The current study focuses on the impacts of Mens Action to Stop Violence Against Women (MASVAW), a network of men working on gender-based violence in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which MASVAW activists incorporate gender-equitable attitudes and practices into their own lives and to identify their influence on men around them. The cross-sectional study includes three groups: activists, men living in an area where activists conducted outreach activities and a control group living in an area with no MASVAW activities. Both activists and activist influenced men scored higher on measures of gender-equitable beliefs and practices than controls, suggesting that MASVAW activism is successful. Furthermore, men from the activist influenced group scored higher in gender progressiveness even if they did not have contact with MASVAW themselves, suggesting a diffusion effect of social change. However, there were some areas where the activists had low scores, suggesting need for additional inputs.

Education in Emergencies A Review of Theory and Research

In this article, we conduct an integrative and rigorous review of theory and research on education in emergencies programs and interventions as international agencies implement them in areas of armed conflict. We ask several questions. How did this subfield emerge and what are the key conceptual frameworks that shape it today? How do education in emergencies programs affect access, learning, and protection in conflict-affected contexts? To answer these questions, we identify the conceptual frameworks and theoretical advances that have occurred since the inception of the field in the mid-1990s. We review the theories that frame the relationship between education and conflict as well as empirical research that tests assumptions that underpin this relationship. Finally, we assess what we know to date about “what works” in education in emergencies based on intervention research. We find that with regard to access, diminished or inequitable access to education drives conflict; conflict reduces boys’ and girls’ access to education differently; and decreased distance to primary school increases enrollment and attendance significantly for boys and even more so for girls. With regard to learning, education content likely contributes to or mitigates conflict, although the mechanisms through which it does so remain underspecified; and peace education programs show promise in changing attitudes and behaviors toward members of those perceived as the “other,” at least in the short term. Finally, providing children living in emergency and postemergency situations with structured, meaningful, and creative activities in a school setting or in informal learning spaces improves their emotional and behavioral well-being.

Learning World Culture or Changing It? Human Rights Education and the Police in India

This article examines how local law enforcers in India respond to NGO efforts to disseminate world culture through human rights education. Law enforcement officers do not merely decouple from human rights discourse by superficially endorsing it. They also go further than infusing rights with local meaning. Officers use the language and logic of human rights to explicitly contest the validity of core rights protections. This reveals how local state agents can resist world culture by using its script to argue against its principles.