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Enactments of Youth Agency to Resist, Transgress, and Undo Traditional Gender Norms in Honduras

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Education and Youth Agency

Part of the book series: Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development ((ARAD))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the ways youth employed their agency to resist, transgress, and undo traditional gender norms within their homes and communities. Building on the gender, education, and development literature, the ethnographically informed case study followed 19 young men and women in two peri-urban areas outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras as they contested and negotiated their response to the gendered expectations that family, friends, and community members had for them as young women and young men. The chapter delves into the experiences of Arianna, Milton, and the Sport and Culture subcommittee of the CARE youth program as they negotiated aspects of their gender, and understanding of gender equity. The youth’s self-described ways in which their agency was enacted in quotidian life provides insights on local-level change, which occurred through individual and group action, and how their agency affected gender norms within home and community spaces.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The study was conducted in collaboration with the former Education Unit of CARE Honduras and CARE USA. From 2008–2010 I served as a graduate student researcher with the Minnesota International Development Education Consortium (MIDEC) on the Patsy Collins Trust Fund Initiative project. Dr. Joan DeJaeghere (PI) and Dr. Chris Johnstone (co-PI) led the project, and Nancy Pellowski Wiger, fellow contributor to this manuscript, was a close collaborator on the MIDEC work in Honduras. Having worked remotely with the Education Unit from 2008–2010, I partnered with them on this research and served as a fellow in their office from February until August 2010. The Education Unit had a large portfolio of projects across the country. The four-person Education Unit staff provided an impressive amount of support, training, and program development and implementation across the many communities with which they collaborated (see Moll & Renault (2014) for additional information on the project).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Kate S. McCleary

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  1. Kate S. McCleary
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Correspondence to Kate S. McCleary .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Joan G. DeJaeghere

  2. Pearson, Mahwah, New Jersey, USA

    Jasmina Josić

  3. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Kate S. McCleary

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McCleary, K.S. (2016). Enactments of Youth Agency to Resist, Transgress, and Undo Traditional Gender Norms in Honduras. In: DeJaeghere, J., Josić, J., McCleary, K. (eds) Education and Youth Agency. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33344-1_6

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