Working paper 1 (pdf - Institute of Education, University of London

intersect with race, class and poverty. Moreover the dynamic of different practices of „doing gender‟ or
„doing poverty‟ are overlooked in favour of more essentialised and fixed identities.
The data collected in the two schools suggests that global and national initiatives for gender equality
in education and poverty reduction are being interpreted using forms of vertical and horizontal
disjunction. A distance is perceived between policies on gender that are handed down. Fulfilling this
policy is interpreted simply as a matter of intervening to ensure equal numbers of girls and boys enrol,
attend and take their place as prefects or monitors. Poverty reduction is also seen in terms of
interventions to provide food. No wider obligations or processes of dialogue are entailed.
This vertical disjunction is accompanied by a horizontal disjunction in which teachers and members of
the SGB express some sharp divisions with the parents of children in the school and the experiences
of girls reaching puberty. One way of maintaining the boundary markers of this horizontal disjuncture
is to stress essentialised identities of girls, boys and poor parents. It appears that the lack of
institutionalised space to consider gender equality or poverty reduction in the school and its
community provides one setting in which sweeping statements are made and not critically examined.
Thus a horizontal disjuncture is maintained between the school (teachers and SGB) and the
community of parents and pupils and few initiatives to challenge this can be sustained; the only
institutionalised connection concerned classes on 'morality for girls' and the maintenance of the
feeding scheme. In neither was there space to think about forms of gender inequality and how to
develop more equitable relations. Similarly the absence of opportunities for critical interaction and
discussion regarding gender and poverty mean that the voices of poor parents are not invited into
discussions of school policy and that the work of the school does not appear to be a major concern of
the women's groups or other social organizations in the community. Thus the horizontal disjuncture is
both at the level of ideas and organization.
The combination of vertical and horizontal disjunctures seems to make it peculiarly difficult for the
school to act on national and global gender equality and poverty reduction initiatives in anything other
than the most minimal form of ensuring equal enrolments. Any deeper engagements with
understanding and acting on gender equality and poverty reduction by the schools will require
considerably more time, canvassing of a wider range of views, and critical examination than either
has been able to achieve to date. The schools have thus put in place some minimal interventions
regarding gender and poverty reduction and have received no support or guidance on how to take this
further.
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