Supriya Baily

Speaking Up: contextualizing women's voices and gatekeepers' reactions in promoting women's empowerment in rural India

This article deepens the understanding of the impact empowerment programs have for women on their social environment, and more specifically on the men in the community, who may or may not be supportive of such endeavors. Gathering evidence from one case in rural India, it addresses how powerholders and gatekeepers reacted to the increased use of womens voices as they interacted as members of a group, within the broader community, and as the women recognized their own increase in value to the community.

The Quality of Equity? Reframing Gender, Development and Education in the Post-2020 Landscape.

The year 2015 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, with a goal to contribute to gender equality globally. As scholars continue in their quest to ‘take stock’ of the ways in which gender and education work in tandem to achieve greater gender equality, we observe a revival in interest regarding conversations on gender and education. These conversations cover a gamut of related issues, including teaching and achievement as well as a number of intersecting issues such as gender-based violence. Within the conversation has been a continued focus on the role of equity primarily defined as access and opportunity. This paper explores the context of quality as it relates to equity in education and addresses the problems that are still left on the margins. Our goal is to take stock and assess the strength of evidence and to provide directions for future research.

Who Gets Left Behind? The Fate of the Unrepresented in the Wake of US-India Higher Education Partnerships.

The promotion of US–Indian higher education partnerships affects those students who are most marginalized. This article explores the development, implementation, and reception of such partnerships to meet the needs of students who remain on the borders of educational access in India. This article addresses the ways higher education policies systematically universalize the marginalization of certain students, explores the impact of how policies of partnerships will address the needs of such students, and seeks to explore how administrators in higher education institutions see the growth of such partnerships shifting the status quo of privilege and power. Through the evaluation of policy papers, historical documents, media reports, survey data and informal conversations with stakeholders, the findings will address the underlying consequences and effects on higher education policy development in India. This article seeks to deconstruct the directions such relationships might take and consider the impact on students who remain on the periphery of higher education in India.

Experiencing the “Growing Edge” Transformative Teacher Education to Foster Social Justice Perspectives

This article explores how teachers’ perceptions of social justice issues are developed through experiential learning opportunities and maps their transformations in thinking onto the three levels of responsibility identified by Berger’s “growing edge.” The study looked at where teachers were on the growing edge and examples of how they navigated that edge. The findings showed teachers’ navigation as a cyclical process where they would return to the process of discovering and recognizing the edge once they felt they had build a firm ground and were on solid footing at their new edge.

Conducting Fluid and Timely Research in Youth Activism

In 1991, the announcement that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize galvanized the student body of a New Delhi women’s college. While the students, until then, had little knowledge of the struggles faced by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, she had been a young undergraduate in New Delhi when her mother was assigned to the city as the Burmese ambassador to India.

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

Abstract 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.

Identifying Structural Changes From Within: Emancipatory Narratives Exploring Community Constraints to Women’s Education and Empowerment in Rural India

Using a critical theory framework, the article explores emancipatory narratives obtained through a case study of women in rural India. In-depth interviews, focus group conversations, observations, and document analysis highlight the complexity of the subsequent set of challenges facing women as it relates to both the education and empowerment for women. Initial research questions addressed different dimensions of women’s empowerment, but, through grounded theory, findings emerged that highlighted the constraints embedded in continuing education programs for women in these contexts. Providing evidence from the lived experiences of women who have been the recipients of an economic delivery program and nonformal education programs, themes highlight the role of politics, corruption, and poverty as larger systemic issues hindering women’s access to education.

Framing the World Bank Education Strategy 2020 to the Indian Context: Alignments, Challenges, and Opportunities

This chapter is a theoretical exploration of the relevance, challenges, and points of consideration to be taken into account as India prepares for the next stage of educational development. By providing context for the current challenges faced by India and aligning the framework of ESS2020 with government goals, this chapter seeks to inform the debate on ESS2020, especially in light of the significant gap in secondary education in India. Though the case itself focuses on India, in part due to its size, relative importance in the global economy and the relatively open nature of its government and media, there is much that would be relevant to other countries that have succeeded in addressing the first stages of educational development and that are poised to tackle the next steps. This chapter utilizes media reports, government documents, and in-country research to highlight how ES 2020 applies, falls short, or altogether misses the Indian context.

The Story of the Fellowship

In the pages of this book, you will see how teachers, working collaboratively and across continents engaged in a journey that resulted in personal and professional transformations. The story of how this amazing team came together, worked amidst very challenging odds, and came to the point where this book is published, is one that defies much conventional wisdom of how research, collaboration and new knowledge is created.

Globalization: Defining the Terrain

Globalization can be a nebulous term. It often roots itself on a continuum where definitions range from economic partnerships to a focus on human capacity to embracing principles of equity and social justice both locally and globally. While globalization has developed different connotations and nuances across various fields, what remains constant is the importance and potential it carries with it. In our increasingly internationalized world, globalization has the potential to represent the move towards interconnection, collaboration, and intercultural understanding.