Outline Of the Discussion

Socio-cultural norms and gender gap in education

Socio-cultural norms and Gender Gap in Education

Socio-culture is the anthropological sense of broad patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. More broadly culture can be understood as a peoples way of life or tradition.
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, responsibilities, identities and expectations assigned to men and women

Gender differs the different ways that men and women are culturally defined and evaluated. Gender is a cultural construction.

Influence of Socio-cultural norms on Gender Gap in Education (Cont)

Many other theorists such as Kabeer, (2001), Bisnath and Elson (1999) Sen and Grown( 1987) and Batliwala (1994) argued that gender is socially and culturally determined.
They suggested that for achieving gender based equality, fundamental changes are necessary in the patriarchal social structure.

Influence of Socio-cultural norms on Gender Gap in Education (Cont)

The socio-cultural values and norms has a strong

influence on the issue of women education. Due to traditional socio-cultural practice, women and girls are discriminated within their household. Womens discriminations are reinforced by various institutions-religious and socio-cultural which emphasize womens discrimination in the household.

Factors that influence Gender Gap in Education (Cont)

Son Preference Considering daughter as the non-permanent family member.

Sons are able to support parents in old age

Traditional duties Early Marriage Dowry Purdah

Son-Preference
Son preference is well-known to Bangladesh, Pakistan and Malaysia .

India

Due to socio-cultural practice, the social system has given high value to sons as potential providers and perpetrators of family names.
It I is also commonly believed sons will provide all supports to parents in their old age. On the other hand, daughter will marry and move another family.

Early marriage as the cultural practice

Early marriage is a common practice in rural areas of developing countries . It is also one of reason for gender gap in education.
Daughters are often married of at a very young age . A woman, on an average, is married before reaching the age of 20 years . Most of the parents do believe in early marriage due to daughters safety.

Daughter as the non-permanent family member

Non-permanent family member: In many families, daughters are considered as the nonpermanent family member. Because after married women will move another family . They will eventually live with their husbands families, and the parents will not benefit directly from their education.

Support in old age

Many parents view educating sons as an investment because the sons will be responsible for caring for aging parents. On the other hand, parents may see the education of daughters a waste of money. Because after marriage they will move another family. This negative parental attitudes toward educating daughters is a barrier to a girls education .

Traditional Duties
An important reason for gender bias in education is womens traditional role in societies. In developing countries, womens

duty are vowed to carry out mainly domestic work. For these tasks do not need particular knowledge and families perceive girls education as a waste of time.

Dowry as the social cultural practice

Dowry: In developing countries, parents invest the same amount of money in sons and daughters. But girls receive less education because the money is used to endow them with a dowry, On the other hand, parents educate boys in order to assure them of higher incomes and better wives (with higher dowry).

Dowry as the social cultural practice (Cont..)

Daughters with higher levels of education will likely have higher dowry expenses as they will want a comparably educated husband. However, education sometimes lowers the

dowry for a girl because it is viewed as an asset by the husbands family.

Purdah Practice (veil)

Another socio-cultural and religious practice Purdah that influence on gender gap in education in many developing and Muslim countries.
Many research show that the poor educational achievement of the girls may be attributed to the prevailing Purdah system in many countries.

Purdah Practice( Cont)

In many countries, due to Purdah related norms women's mobility is limited.

In rural areas due of Purdah practice womens movement is limited within the confines of the homestead. These limit womens education opportunity