During the seventeenth century, the Catholic Reformation sparked unprecedented growth in girls' educational opportunities with the opening of over five hundred new teaching convents. Yet, the active role girls played in these institutional and social changes is often overlooked. Even though girls' autobiographical writing from the seventeenth century is rare, prescriptive, educational, and biographical sources from convent schools are rich in details about girls' lives and vocational discernment. Upon leaving school, girls were encouraged to take either marriage or religious vows. Since orthodox Catholicism taught that salvation could only be received if one's life reflected God's will this decision was weighty. In fact, reformed convents tested their entrants to ensure that their vocations were freely chosen and not forced. Seventeenth-century girls' educational theorists shared this concern, and while they debated the details of curriculum, they agreed that only girls had the authority to articulate their own God-given vocations. At convent schools, girls encountered both models of female domesticity and women who were dedicated to religious life. The repeated affirmation of both of these paths created an atmosphere in which girls could legitimately choose either. Furthermore, the memories of vocational discernment recorded in nuns' lives offer evidence of plausible ways in which girls proved their callings to their communities. Focusing on religious vocation reveals how girls in the seventeenth century actively articulated their ideas, impacted their societies, and challenged adult authority. / Graduate / 2017-08-25 / 0330 / 0335 / 0520 / mjkort@uvic.ca

Girls’ education has been promoted by the international development community for over two decades; however, it has proven harder to promote gender equality through education than it has been to promote gender parity in education. Of significance is the global circulation and co-existence of two competing rationales for the importance of girls’ education: economic efficiency and social justice. The cost of ignoring how and why Southern governments and their development partners choose to promote girls’ education is high: an over-emphasis on economic efficiency can mean that the root causes of gendered inequalities in society remain unchallenged, and more social justice-oriented reforms become marginalized. This thesis uses a critical feminist lens to qualitatively investigate the role and significance of human capital, human rights, and human capabilities policy models in the context of the production and enactment of gender equality in education policy knowledge in The Gambia, a small, aid-dependent Muslim nation in West Africa. The purpose of the study was to assess the scope education policies provide for positive change in the lives of Gambian women and girls. Towards illuminating relations of power in and the politics of gender equality in education policy processes, the study compares and contrasts written texts with the perspectives of state and non-state policy actors. The study is based on data drawn from interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis. The findings suggest that different gender equality in education ideas and practices have been selectively mobilized and incorporated into education policy processes in The Gambia. At the level of policy talk, girls’ education is framed as important for both national economic growth, and “women’s empowerment”. However, the policy solutions designed and implemented, with the support of donors, have tended to work with rather than against the status quo. Power and politics was evident in divergent interpretations and struggles to fix the meaning of key concepts such as gender, gender equality, gender equity, and empowerment. Religious beliefs, anti-feminist politics, and the national feminist movement were identified as important forces shaping gender equality in education knowledge and action in the country.

Girls’ education has been promoted by the international development community for over two decades; however, it has proven harder to promote gender equality through education than it has been to promote gender parity in education. Of significance is the global circulation and co-existence of two competing rationales for the importance of girls’ education: economic efficiency and social justice. The cost of ignoring how and why Southern governments and their development partners choose to promote girls’ education is high: an over-emphasis on economic efficiency can mean that the root causes of gendered inequalities in society remain unchallenged, and more social justice-oriented reforms become marginalized. This thesis uses a critical feminist lens to qualitatively investigate the role and significance of human capital, human rights, and human capabilities policy models in the context of the production and enactment of gender equality in education policy knowledge in The Gambia, a small, aid-dependent Muslim nation in West Africa. The purpose of the study was to assess the scope education policies provide for positive change in the lives of Gambian women and girls. Towards illuminating relations of power in and the politics of gender equality in education policy processes, the study compares and contrasts written texts with the perspectives of state and non-state policy actors. The study is based on data drawn from interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis. The findings suggest that different gender equality in education ideas and practices have been selectively mobilized and incorporated into education policy processes in The Gambia. At the level of policy talk, girls’ education is framed as important for both national economic growth, and “women’s empowerment”. However, the policy solutions designed and implemented, with the support of donors, have tended to work with rather than against the status quo. Power and politics was evident in divergent interpretations and struggles to fix the meaning of key concepts such as gender, gender equality, gender equity, and empowerment. Religious beliefs, anti-feminist politics, and the national feminist movement were identified as important forces shaping gender equality in education knowledge and action in the country.

The successful social development of adolescent girls is dependent on the acquisition of the skills required to face the challenges of adult life. Young girls are faced with the problem of a growing aggressive behaviour displayed by the girls who are supposedly their friends. This aggressive behaviour may negatively affect social, psychological or emotional development, possibly resulting in long term social adjustment problems. This investigation identifies the types and causes of aggressive behaviour displayed by adolescent girls, with the intention of ultimately identifying strategies to address aggressive behaviour. The implementation of a schoolbased approach, including all sectors involved in the education of the child in a whole-school programme to address aggressive behaviour, is recommended. Including all parties, firmly committed to addressing aggressive behaviour from a preventative perspective, may result in reducing aggressive behaviour and possibly provide adolescent girls with the coping skills required for successful social development. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Socio-Education)

Bibliography: leaves 131-155 / The central objective of the present research was to provide a better understanding of stereotype threat and its underlying effects on female high school students’ intention to major in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Specifically, the study investigated the intervening effects of mathematics/science self-efficacy and the conditional effects of perceived social support with regards to the implications of stereotype threat. For this reason, three studies were conducted. Participants were female (Study 1 – 3) and male (Study 1) high school students from Harer and Dire Dawa Regions, located in the Eastern part of Ethiopia. Study 1 provided evidence that both female and male participants were well aware of the existence of the negative stereotype about females’ mathematics/science ability. Participants reported that the Ethiopian society attributes less mathematics/science ability to females than to males. Although female participants were well aware of the existence of the negative stereotype about females’ mathematics and science ability, they did not endorse it. Study 2 showed experimentally that stereotype threat reduces indeed females’ intention to major in STEM fields. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that mathematics/science self-efficacy mediated the relationship between stereotype threat and females’ intention to major in STEM fields. Study 3 addressed the role of social support. The results revealed that female participants who felt socially supported in their intention to major in a STEM field were found to be resistant to the negative effects of stereotype threat. In other words, it is the interaction between stereotype threat and the lack of social support that reduces females' intention to major in STEM fields. The findings of the present study are discussed in relation to stereotype threat theory and related literature as well as in relation to potential educational interventions relevant for the Ethiopian context. / Psychology / D. Phil. (Psychology)

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Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Poverty has and will continue to precipitate enormous suffering for countless children in Zimbabwe. This study examines how the psychosocial effects of poverty affect the academic performance of the girl child. At the same time it identifies various policies and programmes designed to attenuate the negative effects of poverty on children. It is estimated that about seven out of ten families in Zimbabwe live in dire poverty because of political unrest, socioeconomic instability, economic and political sanctions, drought, environmental degradation, and HIV/AIDS. This study is informed by Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, and the humanistic perspective. A qualitative phenomenological design was used with focus group discussions, interviews and observations as data-collection instruments, with fifteen (15) Form 2 girls, six (6) teachers, and three (3) headmasters in three secondary schools in Masvingo Province. The use of the phenomenological design helped to bring to the surface deep issues, and to make the voices of the girl children heard. The Tesch’s open coding method of data analysis was used to identify themes and categories. Findings from this study revealed that the majority of the families in Zimbabwe cannot afford even the basic human needs (food and non-food items) which are necessary to sustain life, thus adversely affecting the children’s health, and their emotional, physical, moral, social and academic achievements. This study also established that the girls’ academic performance is affected by household chores/child labour, financial constraints, a lack of motivation, early marriages, and the lack of food, as well as health issues and sanitation, delinquent behaviour, child abuse, prostitution, the long distances to and from school, stigmatisation and marginalisation. This study recommends early intervention programmes for children, and the sustainable development of mining, rural and urban communities. The government, and the families, should make basic education affordable to all children, irrespective of their gender. This study also recommends that the problems be addressed by the microsystems of the school, and of the families, and the neighbourhood mesosystems (linkages) and exosystems, as well as by the macro-systems (political, ideology). Collaborative work is also needed among Zimbabweans and all stakeholders to revisit the root causes of poverty. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Cette thèse met en lumière l'histoire de l'éducation des filles arméniennes du milieu du XIXe au début du XXe siècle en analysant pour la première fois cette histoire dans le contexte général des événements politiques qui ont influencé son développement. Elle explore également le travail des femmes arméniennes en tant que pédagogues, organisatrices et donatrices des écoles de filles. Cette recherche est fondée sur un large éventail de sources publiques et privées : rapports, programmes et règlements scolaires, publications de presse (éditoriaux, correspondances, nouvelles, annonces générales et publicitaires), œuvres littéraires, discours publics, mémoires, journaux intimes, autobiographies et lettres. Celles-ci révèlent la progression de l'éducation des filles des cours particuliers et de la formation archaïque par des femmes pieuses et des diaconesses jusqu'à la fondation d'écoles régulières pour les filles et à une forme d'éducation similaire à celle de leurs frères. Le développement de l'éducation et des écoles de filles arméniennes s'est déroulé dans le contexte triplement tumultueux des politiques coloniales et répressives du gouvernement russe au Caucase, des efforts de l'Église arménienne pour maintenir son autorité et son pouvoir sur les communautés arméniennes, et de la croissance du mouvement national et révolutionnaire des arméniens. Cette recherche souligne la façon dont la question de l'éducation des filles arméniennes a émergé et évolué. Elle montre également comment ce changement a amené les femmes arméniennes à assumer un rôle public, à établir des écoles, des organismes de bienfaisance, des bibliothèques, à écrire et à traduire de la littérature pour enfants, à organiser une série d'activités de collectes de fonds pour les écoles de filles (bazar de charité, loterie publique, vente de broderies, théâtres et concerts) et à participer au mouvement révolutionnaire. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans l'actualité des recherches en sciences de l'éducation sur la scolarisation, les programmes et les institutions scolaires du XIXe et du début du XXe siècle. Elle s'engage également dans les débats sur l'éducation des filles et l'histoire des femmes dans l'Europe de l'Est et au Caucase. Cette recherche contribue enfin aux Études Arméniennes en écrivant un chapitre essentiel et inédit de l'histoire arménienne sur la présence et le rôle des femmes dans les événements politiques, sociaux et culturels majeurs du XIXe et du début du XXe siècle. / This dissertation brings to the light the story of the late-mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth-century education of Armenian girls for the first time by placing it in the context of the general political events that influenced its development. It also examines Armenian women's work as educators, organisers and sponsors of girls' schooling. The research is based on a wide array of public and private sources: school reports, programs and regulations, press publications (editorials, correspondences, news, announcements and advertisements), literary works, speeches, memoirs, diaries, autobiographies and letters, which reveal the period's progression from girls receiving private tutoring and an archaic training by deaconesses and celibate devotees to establishing regular schools for girls and providing them a similar form of education as their brothers. The development of Armenian girls' schools and education took place in the turbulent context of the repressive colonial politics of the Russian Government in the Caucasus, the efforts of the Armenian Church to maintain its authority and power over the Armenian communities and the growing Armenian national-revolutionary movement. The research uncovers the nuances of changing consciousness about Armenian girls' education and shows how it led Armenian women to assume public roles, establish schools, charities, libraries, write and translate children's literature, undertake a wide range of fund-raising public activities for girls' schools (charity bazaars, public lotteries, embroidery sales, theatres and concerts) and enter the revolutionary movement. This dissertation joins a vibrant conversation in the educational sciences about nineteenth and early twentieth-century schooling, programs and institutions. It also engages in the discussions about Eastern-European and Caucasian girls' education and women's history. The research also contributes to Armenian Studies by restoring to Armenian history a missing and vital chapter about women's presence and role in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century major political, social and cultural developments.