Abstract
This chapter explores the ways that schooling experiences have the potential to foster agency among rural adolescent aged girls in Gujarat, India. Based upon a 5-year longitudinal ethnographic study, the experiences and trajectories of two adolescent aged girls are examined to explore manifestations of youth agency, show how the development of agency might be influenced by their educational experiences, and illuminate the ways that they have been able to exercise their agency. Further, the chapter examines how the enactment of agency by youth is a negotiated process that is embedded in a larger context, and in relation to sociocultural norms and economic structures pertaining to marriage and employment. The field’s conceptual understanding of processes of agency through the relationship between education, social norms, and agency is expanded.
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Notes
- 1.
See Shah (2015) for more information on research methodology and researcher positionality conducted during 2008–2010.
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Shah, P.P. (2016). Agency as Negotiation: Social Norms, Girls’ Schooling and Marriage in Gujarat, India. 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_5
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