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oapen-20.500.12657-306292024-03-25T09:51:39Z Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries Kyomuhendo Bantebya, Grace Jones, Nicola Ghimire, Anita Marcus, Rachel Harper, Caroline justice developing countries gender girls adolescence norm change Child marriage Hmong people Nepal Social norm Uganda Vietnam thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology Adolescence, wherever you live, is a potentially turbulent and challenging time and no less so in the four countries where we undertook our work. Here, transitions through adolescence are fraught with difficulties, in part due to the deeply embedded gender norms which determine what a girl can and cannot do and how she must be. Each specific context came with its own factors: multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities, remoteness, variable services (if any at all) and, sometimes, a policy and cultural context without recognition of adolescence, where the transition to adulthood is short or immediate rather than prolonged. Nevertheless, what we know from biological sciences is that adolescence is a developmental period – a time when the body and mind changes. These changes bring with them potential which in the right context, can open new opportunities. Our interest was in exploring that potential and how gendered norms might truncate opportunities and limit the development of capabilities which every young adult could aspire to own – the ability to have a political voice, to be educated, to be in good health, to have control over one’s body, to be free from violence, to be able to own property and earn a livelihood, to be economically and politically empowered. We were intrigued by the very common experiences of adolescent girls across multiple contexts. This learning and sharing enabled us to explore in much greater depth what norms are and how they operate within political and institutional spaces at national and community levels. It also allowed us to explore the changing and different conceptual understandings of gendered social relations, gender equality and the usage of the term ‘norm’ to capture embedded, often implicit, informal rules by which people abide, and which are bound into the values people and societies accept implicitly, accept reluctantly or actively contest. 2018-02-01 23:55:55 2019-10-18 14:18:35 2020-04-01T13:03:21Z 2020-04-01T13:03:21Z 2018 book 644645 OCN: 1019657346 9781138747166;9781315180250 http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/30629 eng application/pdf n/a 644645.pdf Taylor & Francis Routledge 7b3c7b10-5b1e-40b3-860e-c6dd5197f0bb 9781138747166;9781315180250 Routledge 228 open access
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Adolescence, wherever you live, is a potentially turbulent and challenging time and no less so in the four countries where we undertook our work. Here, transitions
through adolescence are fraught with difficulties, in part due to the deeply
embedded gender norms which determine what a girl can and cannot do and how
she must be. Each specific context came with its own factors: multi-ethnic and
multi-religious communities, remoteness, variable services (if any at all) and, sometimes,
a policy and cultural context without recognition of adolescence, where the
transition to adulthood is short or immediate rather than prolonged.
Nevertheless, what we know from biological sciences is that adolescence is a
developmental period – a time when the body and mind changes. These changes
bring with them potential which in the right context, can open new opportunities.
Our interest was in exploring that potential and how gendered norms might truncate
opportunities and limit the development of capabilities which every young
adult could aspire to own – the ability to have a political voice, to be educated,
to be in good health, to have control over one’s body, to be free from violence, to
be able to own property and earn a livelihood, to be economically and politically
empowered.
We were intrigued by the very common experiences of adolescent girls across
multiple contexts. This learning and sharing enabled us to explore in much greater depth what norms are and how they operate within political and institutional
spaces at national and community levels. It also allowed us to explore the changing
and different conceptual understandings of gendered social relations, gender equality
and the usage of the term ‘norm’ to capture embedded, often implicit, informal
rules by which people abide, and which are bound into the values people and societies
accept implicitly, accept reluctantly or actively contest.
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