GSWS Research Colloquium Presentation on 2/15

I will be presenting chapter three of my dissertation at the Penn Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies (GSWS) Graduate Research Colloquium on Wednesday, February 15th from 12:00-1:30 PM (EDT) in the GSWS conference room (Suite 345 of Fisher-Bennett Hall) and on Zoom. The event will be held in a hybrid format, and lunch will be served for those who are attending in person. This chapter explores secondary schoolboys’ perspectives on various gender issues in Sierra Leone. A summary of my presentation can be found below.

Please RSVP by emailing Matty Hemming mhemming@sas.upenn.edu if you will be attending in person or online. 

“Grading Progress: Secondary Schoolboys’ Perspectives on Gender and Education Inequalities in Sierra Leone”

Abstract
Research on involving men and boys in actively promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sierra Leone has gained traction in recent years (Ibrahim & Shepler, 2022). This chapter highlights secondary schools in Sierra Leone as unexamined but critical sites for engaging young men on gender issues. Drawing on ethnographic data and discussions at a student forum at a high-performing boys’ secondary school in the northern district, I argue that rapid enrollment through the Government’s 2018 Free Quality School Education Program has done little to transform young men’s discriminatory attitudes towards women and girls. Secondary schoolboys shared perspectives on sexual and gender-based violence, teenage pregnancies, marriage, education, employment, and political leadership that revealed strong gender biases young men observed and that were reproduced and sustained through patriarchal structures in schools and communities. These findings complicate national gender and education discourses on the relationship between access to secondary schooling and the “radical inclusion” of adolescent girls in Sierra Leone.