Women, Literacy and Development

by Robinson-Pant,Anna

• ISBN13: 9780415322393
• ISBN10: 0415322391
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Are literate women more likely to use contraceptives or to send their children to school? This is a question that has dominated much development research and has led to women's literacy being promoted by governments and aid agencies as the key to improving the lives of poor families. However, high dropout rates from literacy programs suggest that the assumed link between women's literacy and development can be disputed. This book explores why women themselves want to learn to read and write and why, all too often, they decide that literacy classes are not for them. Bringing together the experiences of researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in more than a dozen countries, this edited volume presents alternative viewpoints on gender, development and literacy through detailed first-hand accounts. Rather than seeing literacy as a set of technical skills to be handed over in classrooms, these writers give new meaning to key terms such as "barriers," "culture," "empowerment" and"motivation." Divided into three sections, this text examines new research approaches, a gendered perspective on literacy policy and programming and implementation of literacy projects in African, Asian and South American contexts. With new insights and groundbreaking research, this collection will interest academics and professionals working in the fields of development, education and gender studies.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Notes on the contributors	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
ANNA ROBINSON-PANT
PART I Questioning women's literacy: new research approaches	11	(102)
1 'The illiterate woman': changing approaches to researching women's literacy	15	(20)
ANNA ROBINSON-PANT
2 Distorted mirrors: (de)centring images of the 'illiterate Indian village woman' through ethnographic research narratives	35	(22)
PRITI CHOPRA
3 Implications of the New Literacy Studies for researching women's literacy programmes	57	(11)
BRIAN V. STREET
4 Creating the gender text: literacy and discourse in rural El Salvador	68	(17)
JULIA BETTS
5 Qualitative methods in researching women's literacy: a case study	85	(15)
SHIRIN ZUBAIR
6 A self-reflexive analysis of power and positionality: toward a transnational feminist praxis	100	(17)
CHIZU SATO
PART II Identifying the issues: a gendered perspective on literacy policy and programming	113	(78)
7 Functional literacy, gender and identities: policy and practice	117	(22)
ALAN ROGERS, ARCHANA PATKAR AND L.S. SARASWATHI
8 'Women are lions in dresses': negotiating gender relations in REFLECT learning circles in Lesotho	139	(20)
GILLIAN ATTWOOD, JANE CASTLE AND SUZANNE SMYTHE
9 Closing the gap: issues in gender-integrated training of adult literacy facilitators - possibilities, progress and resistance	159	(19)
JULIET McCAFFERY
10 Women, literacy, development, and gender: a telling case involving an HIV-positive woman	178	(13)
DONNA BULMAN
PART III Learning from experience	191	(54)
11 'I will stay here until I die': a critical analysis of the Muthande Literacy Programme	195	(11)
JULIET MILLIGAN
12 'Literacy brought us to the forefront': literacy and empowering processes for Dalit community women in a Mumbai slum	206	(13)
SUJATA KHANDEKAR
13 Functional participation? Questioning participatory attempts at reshaping African gender identities: the case of REFLECT in Uganda	219	(14)
MARRK FIEDRICH
14 'Out of school, now in the group': family politics and women's illiteracy in the outskirts of Mexico City	233	(12)
CLAUDIA FLORES-MORENO
Afterword: reading ethnographic research in a policy context	245	(5)
LALAGE BOWN
Index	250