Education, poverty and "purity" in the context of adolescent girls' secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern India

Satyanarayana Ramanaik, Martine Collumbien, Ravi Prakash, Lottie Howard-Merrill, Raghavendra Thalinja, Prakash Javalkar, Srikanta Murthy, Ben Cislaghi, Tara Beattie, Shajy Isac, Stephen Moses, Lori Heise, Parinita Bhattacharjee, Satyanarayana Ramanaik, Martine Collumbien, Ravi Prakash, Lottie Howard-Merrill, Raghavendra Thalinja, Prakash Javalkar, Srikanta Murthy, Ben Cislaghi, Tara Beattie, Shajy Isac, Stephen Moses, Lori Heise, Parinita Bhattacharjee

Abstract

Background: Gender-related norms and poverty remain important structural barriers to secondary school attendance among adolescent girls in southern India. We analyse how gender norms interact with family deprivation and dynamics to result in girls dropping out of school; we identify the main facilitators of school retention and changes to gender socialisation.

Methods: Longitudinal qualitative case studies with 36 girls were nested within a cluster randomized trial to evaluate the Samata intervention targeting adolescent girls in Bagalkote and Vijayapura districts in northern Karnataka. We used two rounds of in-depth interviews, conducted in 2014 at a time when respondents were in 8th standard at the age of 13 to 14 and sixteen months later. We combined thematic and narrative analyses.

Results: Our study found that poverty and socioeconomic realities at the household level strongly affect conformity with discriminatory gender practices such as restricting girls' mobility. The value placed on education by parents clearly differentiates the regular school goers from those frequently absent and others who dropped out. With active encouragement of the girls' educational and career aspirations, parents engendered the girl's agency to communicate openly both at home and at school, allowing subtle changes to gender performance while resisting the pressure of social sanctions. In contrast, where educational aspirations were weak, parents invested more intensely in enforcing correct performance of gender, prioritising her well-being by aiming to secure her future in a good marriage. Among poorer families, girls' domestic duties came at the cost of schooling with concerns about protecting her sexual purity predominating.

Conclusions: In contexts where a strong gender ideology of virginity before marriage rules, subtle shifts in harmful gender practices are possible. Interventions aiming to improve education need to target the most deprived families, focussing on trust building through open communication.

Conflict of interest statement

On behalf of all the co-authors, Satyanarayana Ramanaik declares no competing interests in this study. Our funders, namely, DFID and ViiV Healthcare, had no direct role in designing the study, data collection, analysis, preparation of the manuscript, or the decision to publish. However, technical support was provided by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University of Manitoba while designing the study, data analysis, and preparation of the manuscript. Being ViiV Healthcare is a commercial source of funding, we declare no competing interest of ViiV Healthcare relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, marketed products etc. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1. A sample lifeline chart as…
Fig 1. A sample lifeline chart as part of the study.

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