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There appears to be a globally unifying discourse that suggests Muslim communities are not supportive of girls' education12. This paper aims to destabilize such a discourse by inserting the narratives of Muslim parents pursuing girls' education in Assam's Nagaon district. By paying attention to the concepts of bhal suwali (good girlhood) and bhal ghor (good family) articulated by parents in my study, this paper connects the performances of certain types of gender practices with the pursuit of class aspirations. It shows that good girlhood works as symbolic capital that helps Muslim parents to culturally authorize their daughters as legitimate actors in the field of education, while legitimizing themselves as good family. This paper draws attention to three practices of respectable femininity through which good girlhoods are enacted in the field of education, namely: negotiating poverty respectably, prioritizing gendered discipline, and merging career aspirations with marital prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Girls' education has for many decades been central to the global development agenda, due to its positive impact on girls' health and wellbeing. In this paper, the authors revisit boys' attitudes, behaviours and norms related to girls' education, following the Samata intervention to prevent girls' school dropouts in Northern-Karnataka, South India. Data were collected from 20 boys in intervention villages before and after the intervention, and analysis was undertaken using a thematic-framework approach. Findings suggest that while boys did hold some attitudes and beliefs that supported girls' education and delayed-marriage, these remained within the framework of gender-inequitable norms concerning girls' marriageability, respectability/family-honour. Participants criticised peers who sought to jeopardise girls' respectability by teasing and community gossip about girls-boys' communication in public. Boys who rejected prevailing norms of masculinity were subjected to gossip, ridicule and violence by the community. Boys' attitudes and beliefs supported girls' education but were conditional on the maintenance of gendered hierarchies at household and interpersonal levels. Social norms concerning girls' honour, respectability and the role of boys as protectors/aggressors appeared to influence boys' response to girls' school dropouts. Future interventions aiming to address girls' education and marriage must invest time and resources to ensure that intervention components targeting boys are relevant, appropriate and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage—that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. Using a nationally representative longitudinal data set and tackling the potential endogeneity of local crime rates, we find that perceived crime against women in the locality significantly increases the likelihood of early marriage of girls, while there is no such effect on boys of comparable age group. We also find no such effect of gender-neutral crimes (such as theft and robbery) on the likelihood of early marriage of girls. Moreover, we find that the relationship holds only in conservative households where the purdah system is practised, and also in the northern region of India, where patriarchal culture and gender norms are stronger than in the southern region. A sensitivity analysis assessing the potential impact of unobservable confounders suggests that our estimates are unlikely to be affected by omitted variable bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs long-run estimates of total missing women (including missing girls at birth and excess female deaths) in China and India over seven decades from 1950 to 2020. We find that the number of missing women in India has been higher than in China throughout the seven decades. Over time, missing girls at birth grew faster in China than in India, but China has made more rapid progress in reducing excess female deaths after birth. While the share of missing girls at birth in total missing women has risen since the 1980s, there has also been a shift in excess female mortality from younger to older age groups. Our estimated trends are consistent with key economic, social, demographic and technological events and developments in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary figurations of the 'the Indian Woman' over recent years have been heavily influenced by national and international media coverage focused on high profile, gruesome and brutal cases of rape and sexual assault of women in public. The suffering involved in such cases notwithstanding, we argue that investment in such representations runs the risk of limiting our understanding of the varied experiences of female bodies in public life. Most significantly, the bodies of younger girls and how they relate to public life is mostly assumed rather than studied. Drawing on a sub-sample of ethnographies of younger children aged 6–8 living in the city of Hyderabad, India and employing the phenomenological concept of 'orientation', the article explores young girls' everyday embodied orientation towards public life, with an intersectional framework. The paper considers three case studies from different spatial/cultural contexts and the empirical material is organised around the themes of the male gaze in a public space, orienting bodies in a schooled space, and the lived body in a domestic space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms serve to normalise gender inequalities and constrain girls' agency. This paper examines how girls' agency, along a continuum, is influenced by the interplay between constraining and enabling influences in the girls' environments. We analyse data from a qualitative study nested within a cluster randomised evaluation of Samata, a multi-layered programme supporting adolescent girls to stay in school and delay marriage in Karnataka, South India. Specifically, we compare agency among 22 girls from intervention communities and 9 girls in control communities using data from the final round of interviews in a qualitative cohort. Using the concept of 'thin' and 'thick' agency on a continuum, we identified shocks like mothers' death or illness, poverty stress, gender norms and poor school performance as thinning influences. Good school examination results; norms in support of education; established educational aspirations; supportive parents, siblings and teachers; and strategic government and Samata resources enabled thicker agency. The intervention programme's effect increased in parallel to the gradient from thin to thicker agency among girls in progressively supportive family contexts. Engagement with the programme was however selective; families adhering to harmful gender norms were not receptive to outreach. In line with diffusion theory, late adopters required additional peer encouragement to change norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the education of girl children in India. It attempts to understand how gender identity influences the quality of their learning experiences. Reviewing available studies it explores how gender is contextualized within schools and pervades classroom processes, specifically in relation to ‘official’ school knowledge as well as the hidden curriculum of teacher attitudes and peer interaction. It points to the need for a gender perspective to inform school policy and classroom practices and also be integrated in teacher education. It suggests that unless gender concerns are seriously addressed, the number of girls who enrol in schools may increase, but they are unlikely to receive an education that is equitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Success of incentive transfers programs in South America has encouraged policymakers in India to adopt similar demand-driven approaches to reward behaviors that invest in girls and eventually change negative cultural attitudes toward them. Embrace of this approach, however, needs to be nuanced by a closer scrutiny of the gendered impact of such programs; an understanding of the differential sociocultural and public policy contexts; and a questioning of the design of the incentive transfer programs in India. Despite their political uptake, such programs address the practical needs of girls and women while neglecting their strategic interests. Furthermore, without adequate critical engagement, the programs can have unintended consequence of reinforcing gender stereotypes. Rather than importing developmental shortcuts, India should turn its gaze inward to supply-side interventions and homegrown mobilization experiences of the women’s movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article elaborates on the significance of the ‘family factor’ in facilitating sport for development (SfD) opportunities by presenting findings related to a research project with an SfD project based in Delhi, India, which seeks to empower adolescent girls through sport. The findings add to the limited understanding of the role of the family in SfD opportunities; the paucity of studies which examine SfD initiatives in India and more recent studies of sport and physical culture in India. The girls of this study emerged from families who were largely supportive of the sporting opportunities and the empowerment promised through their SfD involvement. However, these families expressed concerns about issues of violence against girls and women in Delhi which impacted girls' opportunities to enact empowerment in public spaces and to access non-traditional gender roles. Furthermore, an additional understanding of the family emerged wherein the extended family of origin served as a foil to the empowered girls within this study. The findings offer more nuanced understanding of the effects of the family for SfD programming that seeks to empower girls. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Information on growth status of a population is essential to establish the health status of the population and administer any health intervention programmes. Aims: The study aimed to examine growth patterns in body, fat and physiological traits during adolescence in the light of various hypotheses and other studies. Subjects and methods: Cross-sectional data on a sample of 220 Rajput girls aged 11–17 years were collected from Theog tehsil, Shimla District in Himachal Pradesh. Results: Mean body height and weight increased by 11% and 45.5%, respectively, from age 11 to 17 years. The first marked growth in height took place between 11 and 12 years, while the maximum annual increment was witnessed between 13 and 14 years. ANOVA revealed significant differences in anthropometric traits between various adolescent age groups. Waist–hip ratio (WHR) decreased from 0.77 at age 11 to 0.72 at age 17 years to attain gynoid pattern of body fat. Mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure increased from 106.92 and 66.48 mm Hg to 111.74 and 72.89 mm Hg, respectively. Conclusion: Although the girls in the present study did not suffer from any severe malnutrition, they had lower dimensions than their Western counterparts when they entered the adolescence phase and also later on. In contrast to height deficits, increase in weight deficits was greater. There is no indication of any compensatory or catch-up growth during adolescence. The present study does not support the hypothesis that lower nutritional stage during childhood affects the timing of adolescent take-off, age at peak height and weight velocity. The data lend support to the hypothesis of saltatory patterns with intervening periods of stasis. BMI, %fat and FM were significantly correlated with diastolic blood pressure but non-significantly correlated with systolic blood pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]