23:00 June, 06 2011

The annual conference for young scholars working in the field of South Asian studies took place at  Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany) from the 19^th to 22^nd of May. New approach to gender studies in South Asia was the topic of the conference this year. This is why the conference was called “Engendering and Degendering South Asian Studies”. Undergraduate and graduate students, young scholars from the universities of Germany, India, Norway, Italy, Lithuania and other countries attended the conference.  A variety of disciplines was represented. There were historians, political scientists, literature scholars, linguists, anthropologists, statisticians and mass communication specialists.  The topics of reports varied amazingly; the presented works were about natural resources usage, local communities’ life, representation of gender in Indian horror films, prostitution in Nepal, surrogacy market in India, influence of new technologies on matrimonial market, etc. The conference was a unique seminar were young but already experienced researchers gathered in order to exchange their experience and ideas and to learn new approaches to their own research. 

The report of SESL was called «Gender Bias in Educational Expectations of Children from Indian Rural Area». It is based on the data of Rajgurunagar study which included the survey of 574 pupils of three schools in one of the rural Indian towns. There are a lot of research papers about the influence of gender on different aspects of the Indian children’s life including education. In particular, a lot of researchers point out that parents often pay more attention to their sons’ education and career than to their daughters’ (for example, more money is spent on the sons’ education).

According to ancient Indian tradition, which is especially strong in rural areas, sons stay with their parents after getting married and take care of them when they are old.  Daughters, on the contrary, live with their husband’s family (often in another village or city). There is a tradition which implies giving a large dowry to husband’s family. Because of that, it is sometimes more difficult for parents to find a groom for their educated daughter. Moreover, they will have to pay much more money as a dowry to groom’s family. As a result, investments into daughters’ education are considered senseless.

 We anticipated a significant effect of gender on children’s educational expectations. However, according to the results of the statistical analysis, such an effect wasn’t revealed. Pupils of both sexes have pretty high educational expectations (65% girls and 64% boys were planning to receive at least primary higher education).  More detailed data analysis showed that there is a correlation between gender and school effects on children’s educational expectations. Girls from the school for unprivileged castes (school where children from the least wealthy families go to) had the lowest educational expectations in the whole sample and in comparison with the boys from this school.

This effect was also discovered, when amount of time which children spend on housework was considered. Girls from the given school for unprivileged castes spend the most time on helping their parents (33 hours a week on average, which is twice more than boys from the same school). An interesting fact is that the GPA of these girls is higher on average than the achievements of boys from the same school. Moreover, they spend more time on average for doing their homework and like to study at school more. Consequently, this group of girls, despite their high motivation for studies and relatively high grades, doesn’t see its further educational opportunities due to certain factors.

The main idea of the report was that it is insufficient to consider gender as a universal variable which can shape children’s educational trajectories in Indian educational system. Other characteristics should be taken into account while the gender effect is examined.  The example of a small Indian town shows that girls from different social groups have different educational achievements, expectations and trajectories.

Participation in this conference was useful and interesting for several reasons. Firstly, important comments about our study were received from German professors and young researchers. One of the most important comments was a suggestion to study how the teachers’ expectations of the girls’ and boys’ future differ in each school and how these expectations influence interaction between teachers and pupils.  

Secondly, there were a lot of interesting reports on subjects which are scarcely developed in contemporary scientific literature about South Asia.  An example of such report is the one made by Anja Wagner. She suggested a new anthropological approach to gender studies in rural areas of India, particularly, research on married couples. Other examples are the work by Deimantas Valanciunas about the perspectives of Indian cinema studies and research by Sneha Banerjea on international surrogacy market.

Among the most interesting parts of the conference were breaks between sections, when there was an opportunity to discuss each other’s reports informally, exchange stories “from the fields” and plans for the future.

by Evgeny Kochkin