Girls' Schooling, Women's Autonomy and Fertility Change in South Asia


Book Description

Eleven articles explore the interrelated issues of women's autonomy, girls' schooling, and fertility reduction in South Asia. The contributors use census and survey data from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to challenge the notion that there is a universal and causal relationship between rising levels of schooling and declining levels of fertility, and that schooling enhances female autonomy. The volume concludes that resources should be devoted to the spread of education, but not at the expense of contraceptive and maternal/child health services. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Critical Perspectives on Schooling and Fertility in the Developing World


Book Description

This volume assesses the evidence, and possible mechanisms, for the associations between women's education, fertility preferences, and fertility in developing countries, and how these associations vary across regions. It discusses the implications of these associations for policies in the population, health, and education sectors, including implications for research.




Gender in South Asia And Beyond


Book Description

For over 40 years, Professor Patricia Jeffery, Professor Emerita in Sociology, University of Edinburgh, carried out pioneering research, individually and in partnership with her colleagues. The range of subjects she covered includes gender and development, especially childbearing, women’s reproductive rights, social demography in South Asia, Indian society, gender and communal politics, education and the reproduction of inequality; race and ethnicity. Her books, including Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah (1979) and Appropriating Gender: Women’s Activism, Politicized Religion and the State in South Asia (edited with Amrita Basu, 1998) inspired peers and future scholars alike. In this volume, we bring together a range of new research that is inspired by and intersects with Professor Jeffery’s work. The chapters offer new data, refreshing insights and original analysis on subjects of contemporary importance in the fields of gender, health, marginalization and development.




Fertility Transition in South India


Book Description

This volume brings together 13 well-researched and original essays which describe and analyse the trajectory of fertility decline in the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Documenting the fact that the fertility decline occurred in regions with vast differences in development indicators, the contributors argue that this transition must be understood as a cumulative result of several factors including family planning policies, socio-economic transformation, and changes in social perceptions towards fertility, contraception, marriage, family and child rearing. Combining various qualitative and quantitative techniques with field studies and historical analysis, the contributors go beyond the formal tools of demography and develop an original Geographical Information System (GIS), a spatialized database encompassing south Indian districts.




Reforming Education and Challenging Inequalities in Southern Contexts


Book Description

This book offers in-depth analyses of how education interacts with social inequality in Southern contexts. Drawing on a range of disciplinary frameworks, it presents new analyses of existing knowledge and new empirical data which define the challenges and possibilities of successful educational reform. It is a tribute to the work of the late Christopher Colclough, who, as a leading figure in education and international development, played a key role in the global fight for education for all children. The book critically engages with international evidence of educational access, retention and outcomes, offering new understandings of how social inequalities currently facilitate, mediate or restrict educational opportunities. It exposes the continuing influence of wealth and regional inequalities and caste and gendered social structures. Researchers in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Pakistan and Uganda highlight how the aspirations of families living in poverty remain unfilled by poor-quality education and low economic opportunities and how schools and teachers currently address issues of gender, disability and diversity. The book highlights a range of new priorities for research and identifies some necessary strategies for education reform, policy approaches and school practice, if educational equality for all children is to be achieved. The book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, educational practitioners and policy-makers in the fields of economics, politics and sociology of education, international education, poverty research and international development. The Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429293467 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license (Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, and 12) and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (Chapter 7).




Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia


Book Description

Providing a comprehensive overview of the study of gender in South Asia, this Handbook covers the central contributions that have defined this area and captures innovative and emerging paradigms that are shaping the future of the field. It offers a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives spanning both the humanities and social sciences, focussing on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Handbook brings together key experts in the field of South Asia and gender, women and sexuality. Chapters are organised thematically in five major sections: Historical formations of gender and the significance of colonialism and nationalism Law, Citizenship and the Nation Representations of Culture, Place, Identity Labour and the Economy Inequality, Activism and the State This timely survey is essential reading for scholars who research and teach on South Asia as well as for scholars in related interdisciplinary fields that focus on women and gender from comparative and transnational perspectives.




Women Teaching in South Asia


Book Description

This collection adds fresh perspectives to the current policy and programming initiatives concerning woman teachers in South Asia. It discusses the issues related to the lives and experiences of woman teachers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, providing a common framework for the analysis of the policies and programmes with and for them, in relation to their lived experiences as women in diverse families, communities and societies of the region. It promotes critical discussion of the potential and agency of woman teachers to create change in schools and in society, dwelling on the structural limitations that exist for women working within patriarchal institutions in male-dominated societies. Women Teaching in South Asia argues for a broader gender equality and empowerment perspective when working with woman teachers and for developing policy and programmes. The chapters demonstrate the need for explicit attention to ‘gender’ in the power dynamics between women and men, in the roles they play and in the tasks they perform in schools. This compilation is a valuable contribution with recommendations for future policy, programme and research project development to bridge the gender divide and make sustainable progress towards Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA). It will be a rich resource for ministries of education, NGOs and other agencies supporting educational development, as well as for researchers and academicians working in the fields of Education and Gender Studies.




Everyday Life in South Asia


Book Description

Now updated: An “eminently readable, highly engaging” anthology about the lives of ordinary citizens in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (Margaret Mills, Ohio State University). For the second edition of this popular textbook, readings have been updated and new essays added. The result is a timely collection that explores key themes in understanding the region, including gender, caste, class, religion, globalization, economic liberalization, nationalism, and emerging modernities. New readings focus attention on the experiences of the middle classes, migrant workers, and IT professionals, and on media, consumerism, and youth culture. Clear and engaging writing makes this text particularly valuable for general and student readers, while the range of new and classic scholarship provides a useful resource for specialists.




Reproductive Agency, Medicine and the State


Book Description

Recent years have seen many changes in human reproduction resulting from state and medical interventions in childbearing processes. Based on empirical work in a variety of societies and countries, this volume considers the relationship between reproductive processes (of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period) on the one hand and attitudes, medical technologies and state health policies in diverse cultural contexts on the other. Maya Unnithan-Kumar is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Her research in the early 1990s focused on kinship and gender relations in northwest India and appeared as Identity, Gender and Poverty (Berghahn Books 1997).




Fertility and Familial Power Relations


Book Description

Describes and analyses the corollaries of declining fertility in Southern India to discover how familial and gender relations are affected by the new situation of women giving birth only to 2-3 children.