ABSTRACT

In spite of widespread initiatives to improve access to education for girls, substantive concerns remain. While there is a rich and growing body of literature on gendered experiences of school in majority world contexts, absent is a focus on how this intersects with children’s out of school lives. Further, research with children in rural communities is limited, including those who are in the earlier years of their schooling. This paper addresses these gaps, focusing on gendered dynamics in the everyday lives of children in five rural communities in Northern Sierra Leone. Drawing on Bourdieu, it explores the dialectical interplay between gendered and generational structures, understood as the gendered habitus, in a wider context of structural poverty, uneven and fragile post-colonial restructuring and development. This sets the groundwork for children’s gendered dis/positioning, and ultimately capacity to engage with schooling.

摘要

尽管采取了广泛的举措来改善女孩接受教育的机会，但仍然存在实质性问题。虽然在大多数世界背景下，关于学校性别经历的文献越来越丰富，但缺乏对这如何与儿童的校外生活相交的关注。此外，对农村社区儿童的研究有限，包括那些处于学龄前几年的儿童。本文解决了这些差距，重点关注塞拉利昂北部五个农村社区儿童日常生活中的性别动态。借鉴布迪厄，它探讨了在结构性贫困、不平衡和脆弱的后殖民重建和发展的更广泛背景下，性别结构和代际结构之间的辩证相互作用，被理解为性别惯习。