Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

The study was conducted throughout November 2021 in the township of Langa, in the Western Province of Cape Town, South Africa. The purpose of the study is to explore the menstrual health literacy of adolescent boys through collecting data capturing knowledge, experiences and attitudes. The ambition is to locate the findings within the Human Rights Framework, and explore how they may have implications for the ability of girls to realise their right to education. 32 learners between the ages of 13 and 17 years participated in focus group interviews and 8 informant interviews were held. The findings illustrate that adolescent boys have inadequate knowledge about menstrual health, and how their menstrual literacy is shaped by observations from girls in school, and puzzling together informal pieces of knowledge and  experiences. The potential implications this illiteracy may have for girls are practical and social, where the lack of infrastructures responsive to distinctive needs of female learners deprives the right to education. At the same time, the educational context in South Africa is characterised by inequality and learners from the low-income settings are behind the national curricula, making it unreasonable to expect menstrual literacy being prioritised, given its stigmatised connotations. It concludes highlighting how menstrual literacy matters for altering the patterns of unequal development, and for recognising distinctive realities lived by adolescent boys and girls throughout the world.

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The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.

The purpose of the essay is to discuss the power narration has over our gender roles. John Fiske and Pierre Bourdieu´s theoretical texts have been used to discuss the connection between power and culture in A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession: A Romance. Possession demonstrates how male academics take part in shaping knowledge about the past and the present from their perspective. Byatt uses allusions to myth and folktales to emphasise both the romance theme of the novel and how the past has formed us and continues to affect us in our relationships and social roles. The novel reveals how women are trapped by cultural myths about women’s roles in society. The female characters’ fates demonstrate the complexity of heterosexual relationships for independent women in a society where women are supposed to be taken care of by men. The roles imposed on women in romance stories in particular can be seen as a reductionist patriarchal view of women. Byatt emphasizes how women who at varying levels do not collaborate with men are punished for their chosen lifestyles and how some, like homosexual women, have been removed or have chosen to remove themselves from society in different ways. Byatt attempts to demythologize social myths concerning women and men by rewriting traditional myths and fairy tales. Still, Possession does not ultimately challenge the importance of the heterosexual relationship or the male and female characters’ gender roles.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.

The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.

Este trabalho buscou identificar e analisar porque a presença e a participação de agricultores familiares são inferiores às de agricultoras familiares nos processos de Educação Ambiental, no meio rural e a partir disto discutir as implicações desta disparidade na eficácia dos mesmos. Para tal, foi realizada pesquisa de campo em dois municípios do estado do RS que tinham trabalhos de Educação Ambiental com agricultores e agricultoras familiares. O método principal utilizado para realizar a pesquisa de campo foi a entrevista semiestruturada, seguida da análise e síntese dos conteúdos obtidos a partir de quadros, tabelas e resumos das entrevistas, associando-os aos aportes teóricos baseados em estudo de Gênero, Educação Ambiental, Desenvolvimento Rural, Agricultura Familiar e Sustentabilidade e ao contexto de vida dos sujeitos entrevistados. As constatações da pesquisa apontaram que a presença de agricultores do sexo masculino é reduzida em atividades de Educação Ambiental, porque na percepção destes a Educação Ambiental não trata de questões técnicas, produtivas e econômicas, indispensáveis para a sobrevivência das famílias. O interesse masculino volta-se para questões técnico/produtivas e os estudos sobre diferenças de gênero no meio rural mostraram que a técnica e a tecnologia reforçam valores masculinos, enquanto que o cuidado ambiental, assim como a educação dos filhos, são vistos como atividades "leves", não envolvendo técnica, produtividade ou lucro e por isto são consideradas atividades femininas. Outras razões para a disparidade encontram-se nas formas como o conhecimento sobre Educação Ambiental tem chegado até os agricultores familiares, na influência dos graus de escolaridade sobre as disponibilidades de participar ou não nestas e na descontinuidade das mesmas. Em relação às implicações das disparidades de presença e participação sobre a eficácia da Educação Ambiental verificou-se que os participantes de atividades de Educação Ambiental (homens ou mulheres) apresentam concepções e ações mais reflexivas, críticas e complexas em suas interações com o ambiente, confirmando que a eficácia das atividades de Educação Ambiental seria maior com maior participação dos homens, pois isto os levaria a sair de uma posição de tentativa de domínio sobre a natureza para uma posição de equilíbrio, reflexão e ação crítica sobre suas próprias práticas. A dissertação se encerra destacando aspectos da pesquisa que podem levar a maiores aprofundamentos e não foram suficientemente desenvolvidos devido às limitações de espaço e de tempo da dissertação. / This research looked to identify and to analyze why the presence and the family farmers' participation are inferior to the ones of farming family in the processes of Environmental Education in the rural space, and starting from this to discuss the implications of this disparity in the effectiveness of the same ones. For such, field research was accomplished in two municipal districts of the state of RS that had works of Environmental Education with farmers and farming family. The main method used to accomplish the field research was the semistructured interview, following by analysis and synthesis of the contents obtained from pictures, tables and summaries of the interviews, associating them to the theoretical contributions based on Gender study, Environmental Education, Rural Development, Family Agriculture and Sustainability and to the context of life from the subjects interviewed. The verifications of the research pointed that the presence of male farmers is reduced in activities of Environmental Education because in their perception the Environmental Education doesn't treat of technical, productive and economical subjects, indispensable for the families' survival. The masculine interest is focus on technical/productive subjects and the studies on gender differences in the rural space showed that technique and technology reinforce masculine values, while the environmental care as well the children's education are seen as "light" activities, not involving technique, productivity or profit and for this they are considered feminine activities. Other reasons for the disparity are in the ways as the knowledge about Environmental Education has been arriving to the family farmers, in the influence of the education degrees about the readiness of participating or not in these and in the discontinuity of the same ones. In relation to the implications of the presence and participation disparities on the effectiveness of the Environmental Education was verified that the participants of activities of Environmental Education (men or women) present conceptions and more reflexive, critical and complex actions in their interactions with the environment, confirming that the effectiveness of the activities of Environmental Education would be larger with a larger mens' participation, because this would take them to leave a position of domain on the nature for a balance position, reflection and critical action on their own practices. The dissertation is concluded highlighting aspects of the research that can take to larger knowledge and that were not sufficiently developed due to space and time limitations of the dissertation.