Gender Equity Perceptions Among School-Going Adolescents: A Mixed-Methods Comparison Amongst Tribal and Non-Tribal Rural Areas of an Eastern State in India.

Arista Lahiri,Sweety Suman Jha

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2021.772270

Abstract

Introduction: Gender equity is an important social determinant of population health. There are very few studies in the Indian context in this regard, and even less regarding the diversity in tribal-dominated and non-tribal regions. The current study was conducted to assess and compare the perceptions of adolescents going to selected schools of tribal-dominated and non-tribal rural areas in West Bengal, India, regarding gender equity. It also explored the teacher’s perceptions on gender equity in an attempt to contextualize the students’ perceptions. Methods: A mixed-methods study was conducted with a convergent parallel design in two co-education schools, each from tribal-dominated and non-tribal rural areas. In the quantitative survey total of 828 adolescents aged 14—19 years participated. The qualitative component involved 26 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with the selected teachers. Results: Overall, the respondents from tribal area had a better perception regarding the equitable privilege of independence among genders, equity in decision roles, and especially financial decision roles of women. Perceptions related to girls access to education were better among the boys from non-tribal area than their counterparts from tribal area. The non-tribal respondents had a more inadequate perception regarding women’s limited role. In general, the respondents perceived favorably against gender dominance. The teacher’s perceptions in the context were mostly concordant, with some exceptions, e.g., regarding dominance and violence-related issues, the teachers perceived differently, contrasting the better perceptions exhibited by the students. Conclusion: The teachers’ perceptions showed strict reliance on the deep-rooted social norms that can be taken up for behavior change interventions. Better perceptions from the tribal areas are an opportunity to further enhance on gender equity. The boys’ perceptions can still be improved more in favor of gender equity.

Highlights

Gender equity is an important social determinant of population health
Participants belonging to scheduled tribes (ST), i.e., the tribal participants were more in the schools from tribal area (26.70%) compared to non-tribal area (8.12%), and this difference was statistically significant
Nine teachers belonged to the Scheduled Tribe category; six of them were from the tribal areas

Summary

Introduction

Gender equity is an important social determinant of population health. There are very few studies in the Indian context in this regard, and even less regarding the diversity in tribal-dominated and non-tribal regions. The current study was conducted to assess and compare the perceptions of adolescents going to selected schools of tribaldominated and non-tribal rural areas in West Bengal, India, regarding gender equity. It explored the teacher’s perceptions on gender equity in an attempt to contextualize the students’ perceptions. The inequalities are perceived as deep-rooted and acculturated among backward, hard to reach, and marginalized areas, e.g., in some tribal-dominated regions (Vilms et al, 2017; Landry et al, 2019) This is often coupled with poor population health and poor healthcare access (Braveman and Gruskin, 2003)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion