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Floods cause extensive damage in high-income countries, including the United States, but problems are more severe in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that lack preventative and mitigating infrastructure. Marginalized children's education in LMICs might be particularly vulnerable. Using the Indian Human Development Survey, we investigate flood exposure implications for the education of school-age rural children, paying particular attention to children from marginalized groups. Results show that lower-caste Hindu, Muslim, and poorer children with less-educated parents in agricultural households are more likely to experience flooding. Interactions between flooding and marginalization characteristics indicate that flood exposure is associated with disproportionately negative learning outcomes for girls and that economic resources may mitigate flood exposure effects on delayed school progress. While greater exposures for marginalized groups are concerning, the limited number and modest magnitudes of documented negative effect heterogeneities for marginalized children are somewhat better news.

Implicit prejudice can be simply understood as any negative feelings or beliefs people hold towards a particular outgroup without being aware of it. One such form is microaggression, which can be defined as everyday verbal or nonverbal subtle, unconscious putdowns, slights, or negative remarks towards members of an outgroup. One of the most common and harmful forms is gender-based microaggression. Gender microaggression is defined as subtle, unconscious, everyday putdowns, slights, remarks, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, directed at a particular gender, notably women. Despite a plethora of literature and research on gender microaggression, the focus has predominantly been on understanding microaggressions faced by women in various domains, largely neglecting the experiences of men as victims of microaggression. One such overlooked experience is that of Afghan male students studying in universities in Delhi. Each year, thousands of students from Afghanistan travel to Delhi to pursue higher education, often unaware of the prejudices they may encounter due to associations with terms like 'terrorism' or 'terrorist.' Therefore, this paper aims to understand and study the microaggression faced by Afghan male students by employing the Gender Implicit Association Test on a sample of 103 Indian students studying in universities in Delhi, selected using a snowball sampling technique. This study adapts and modifies the Weapon-based Implicit Association Test. The goal is to uncover the implicit biases of Indian students towards Afghan male students by examining the association (reaction time) between images of weapons and harmless objects, in conjunction with adjectives related to Afghan males and Afghan females. In other words, words or images that are congruent in our minds should result in shorter reaction times and fewer errors compared to words and images that are incongruent. The results indicate that Indian students were quicker in associating weapon images with Afghan male adjectives (D = -0.64) compared to Afghan female adjectives (D = 0.89).

This exploratory study analyzes six female school teachers' narratives of navigating increased care work at home with online teaching during COVID-19 in India. A theoretical framework of decolonizing feminist research, with an emphasis on moving beyond Anglo/Eurocentric forms of feminist knowledge-making, frames the study. Based on the interviews, the study reveals that the home emerged as a site for resistance to the gendered division of care work in marriages via the use of the tactical strategy of relying on family members other than the husband. Within the limited scope of the study, the schools emerged as sites of institutional betrayal manifested in administrative actions and inactions such as removing contractual teachers, scheduling meetings outside work hours, increasing surveillance, and not providing digital support. These administrative decisions were perceived by the participants as motivated by profit-making, displaying complete disregard for the teachers' well-being. The findings advance our understanding of how emergencies such as COVID-19 exacerbate the exploitation of female members of the labor force who are already marginalized through contractual undervalued work or the inordinate burden of caregiving. It also offers important suggestions for policymakers concerned with creating safe and inclusive working spaces for female teachers in the global south.

The intersection of childhood and sexuality is a relatively less researched topic in India. This paper presents teachers' narratives and explores cultural beliefs concerning childhood sexuality. The investigation attempts to understand ways in which the cross-cutting modalities of religion, caste, gender, and sexuality of the teacher and the student shape students' sexual subjectivities. The "Domains of Power" as outlined by Patricia. H. Collins is used to analyse teacher interviews to understand how dominant sexualities are privileged and attain their power within schools. Further, a descriptive analysis is provided for how power relations inform interactions between students and teachers and how such interactions shape teachers' expectations of students' sexual knowledge, experiences, and expressions.

We investigate how social identity, namely gender and caste, affects stream choice at the higher secondary level of schooling in India. The choice of science stream at this level is a crucial determinant of subsequent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and labor market outcomes. Using nationally representative data spanning a decade, we show that females and individuals from historically disadvantaged castes are significantly less likely to study science. We analyze the role of various socio-economic and schooling-related factors in explaining these gaps. We also highlight the interplay between caste and gender using an intersectionality framework.

Intellectual disability in India is substantially under-reported, especially amongst females. This study quantifies the prevalence and gender bias in household reporting of intellectual disability by estimating the age-and-gender specific prevalence of the intellectually disabled by education, Socio-Demographic Index (SDI) score, place of residence, (rural/urban) and income of household head. We estimated prevalence (per 100,000) at 179 (95% CI: 173 to 185) for males and 120 (95% CI: 115 to 125) for females. Gender differences declined sharply with increased education, was higher for lower ages and low income and varied little by state development. Under-identification and under-reporting due to stigma are two plausible reasons for the gender differences in prevalence that increase with age.

This study investigates the impact of 24/7 library operations on the health and work-life balance of Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals in India. Using a mixed-method approach with 52 respondents, reveals significant physical and mental health issues, sleep disruptions, and dietary challenges. Qualitative insights highlight personal and professional hurdles, gender disparities, and concerns about workload and safety. The findings underscore the need for tailored support and infrastructure improvements in continuous library settings. The study contributes to understanding the multifaceted challenges faced by LIS professionals and provides recommendations to enhance overall well-being in 24/7 operational environments.

The study examines the effects of work-from-home (WFH) on working mothers in India, characterized by a patriarchal mindset, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey involving 560 mothers from various sectors, all utilizing WFH due to pandemic measures, was conducted. A moderated mediated model was analyzed in the quantitative study using structural equation modeling. The results showed the absence of domestic help and family work guilt affected the job satisfaction of working mothers. The results showed that the overall dual-stage moderated mediation index from home demands (HDs) to job satisfaction via family-work conflict was significant. In addition, the first stage (HDs × absence of domestic help family-work conflict) and second stage (family-work conflict × family-work guilt job satisfaction) moderations were significant. This article also outlines the limitations of the current work and presents future scope for research.

Brigham Young posits that 'If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but you educate a woman, you educate a nation.' Even now, educating a woman is challenging in cultural practices dominated by values and beliefs in the social system. Women in developing countries face significant barriers in accessing education, whereas gender inequality in communities, society, and the workplace hinders economic and social development. Education as a means of empowerment of women can bring changes socially, economically, and politically. An American author, Helen Keller, says that 'Education cannot be created with ease, only through the experience of trial and sufferings it can be strengthened, inspired and achieved.' Women with visual impairment are still receiving less schooling, denied social acceptance, and lack of access to information also became an impediment added to their woes. Perhaps, ICT has changed visually impaired women's lives by giving them access to mainstream and trying to be independent financially and socially. Furthermore, ICT has allowed visually impaired women in accessing braille materials, operating assistive devices and applications that build confidence, recognition, self-expression, and acquire knowledge. This study explores how inclusive education creates an opportunity for visually impaired women in overcoming societal stigma by achieving personal, social, emotional, and academic goals. ICT in education plays an essential role in developing women and facilitates empowerment, calibrated to a new order of society's structure and functions.

Women face a unique set of challenges in India on account of traditionally held views of their gender, as well as often having lower educational and community status. Gender discrimination has continued to remain an evil in our society. Almost 70% women in South Asia are married at a young age, which is coupled with early childbearing and a lack of decision-making abilities within the traditional family structures, further enhancing their "disadvantaged" position in society. In India, the relationship of status and patriarchal values in addition to the deprived status of women worsens the situation. Despite advances having been made in the active participation of women in the political and economic domain, not much change has been seen in incidences of gender discrimination or dominant patriarchy. Daily interactions ensure that gender stereotypes have a strong influence on our values, judgements and evaluations to an extent that men and women are treated differently in society. A small weaving community, the Devanga community, which has its roots spread across India, practices stereotypes and patriarchal norms which have ensured the existence of male dominance in almost every aspect of decision making. The position of women within this community is worthy of debate and discussion, although no prior research has been conducted on this issue within the Devanga community. This paper draws upon the voices of women from within this community to understand the various levels of discrimination faced by them on a regular basis, along with highlighting male privilege as a cause of perpetuated discrimination and lesser opportunities for girls compared with boys. The reported research study analyzed data obtained from 120 women from the Devanga community through semi structured questionnaires and interviews and adopted an ethnographic feminist perspective to interpret these data. Findings indicate that the voices of women within this community are suppressed due to contributory factors such as orthodox beliefs and practices, male dominance, early marriage, and domestic responsibilities and all of these can be viewed as a barrier to providing educational opportunities to girls. Findings suggest that despite the progress made by women in India, they are still considered to be the single largest group of backward citizens.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the educational systems to shift from traditional learning to flexible learning. Flexible learning is a combination of digital and non-digital technology that ensures the continuity of inclusive and accessible education in the form of online, offline, or blended modes of teaching and learning processes. This descriptive study determined the learning tools and e-learning resources, learning platform and online learning systems, skills towards learning platform and online learning systems, and learning engagements of students of Cavite State University - Silang Campus (CvSU-SC) amidst the new normal setting of learning. Using stratified random sampling, there were 364 student-respondents represented by four departments who answered the structured questionnaire online using Google Form. The findings revealed that smartphones and mobile applications were the most utilized educational tool and e-learning resources. Google Classroom was the most widely used online learning system during asynchronous classes, while Google Meet was a meeting platform during synchronous scheduled classes. It was found that students' skills towards online learning systems and meeting platforms were proficient. During flexible learning, Facebook was on top of the most convenient, followed by Google and Zoom as perceived by students as accessible, equitable, communicative, monitorable, and sustainable to use. Consequently, it was found that students strongly agreed on preparedness as the most vital to engagement in online learning. Accordingly, findings suggest that strengthening online teaching and delivery of methods by creating content tailored to the needs of the students during flexible learning will propel to ensuring the efficacy of teaching and learning processes. Various suggestions were offered for key players in education in addressing the challenges of online learning.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and research are globally recognised as engines of growth and development and indicators of citizens' well-being. Studies have continuously highlighted the unequal access and participation in STEM higher education based on class, caste, gender, disability and other markers of identity. This research paper investigates the underrepresentation of women in STEM at the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) in India. IITs are India's top elite institutions that open window of opportunities to students across the world. The study uses the data available from the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), the Council of Indian Institute of Technology and the websites of the IITs. The findings indicate a significant gap between males and females in faculty positions at IITs. Furthermore, the study finds that the underrepresentation of women faculty differs across the STEM disciplines at IITs in India. It needs more gender-just affirmative action policies such as intersectional reservation for women in STEM academic careers, funding, legal protection against harassment, and representation of women in various committees and leadership positions.

In 2018, Nuh, barely 75 km from India's parliament, was ranked by the Government as the country's most 'backward' district. It is a region fraught with many challenges including endemic poverty and simmering communal tensions, which among other factors have contributed to historically limiting women from pursuing higher education or building career aspirations. While the state has attempted to correct this by building new colleges, this paper explores how women experience and navigate these college spaces. Using a critical feminist lens, it seeks to understand the social and cultural possibilities that college life and higher education have in their lives. Findings suggest that while there are major restrictions on social agency within their everyday life, college emerges as a liminal space that provides an 'escape'. The college space for these women offers possible pathways of imagination, dialogue, solidarity and support, all forming the complex matrix of their future possibilities.

The gender dimension of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has intrigued social scientists for a long time. Although in India, women's entry to STEM higher education has been improving over the last few decades, the reality of premier institutions remains broadly unaltered. The current qualitative research was an attempt: (a) to explore the career-selection-related decision-making, (b) to detect whether gendered processes are evident in STEM research laboratories, and (c) to explore the psychological effects of gendered processes among female doctoral/postdoctoral researchers. This qualitative study relied on in-depth interviews with twenty female STEM academics pursuing doctoral or postdoctoral research in ten premier Indian institutions. A hybrid of theoretical and inductive thematic analysis has been used to analyse the qualitative data. The results revealed that the combination of individual (interest and self-efficacy) and contextual factors (parental support and role models) had impacted the researchers' decision to select and pursue higher studies in STEM. Furthermore, the current research shows that higher studies in STEM are characterised by the four defining features of gendering, i.e., gendered division of labour, gendered symbols, gendered identity, and gendered interactions (Acker, 1990). Gendering in STEM has led to self-doubt and diminished sense of belonging among the researchers.

Job satisfaction is a vital factor regarding turnover rates, especially among women. Work life balance today, especially in times of COVID where home and work place have transgressed boundaries is an imperative precursor for the well-being of an individual. A satisfying job well-integrated into life, balances the overall mental and emotional quotient of working women particularly in the current pandemic in which the workplace is posing a new and unlike set of challenges and problems for women. Research suggests that work place problems faced by the Indian women are mostly long working hours, less recognition of work, lack of motivation and stress related issues, but the new normal of working remotely from home now is altogether an unexpected work scenario. With respect to emerging nations, problems of work life balance among women in the education sector are not well researched. Increased women employment has led to a swelling attention from academia and industry on WLB. With greater access to better educational opportunities, increasing number of women are entering the workforce, and shifting from being home-makers to the organized work force, thereby necessitating an urgent need to examine this phenomenon. Carrying on with online classes remotely has become the order of the day, and it is becoming stressful when both school and personal life operate from the same space. The main idea here is to understand challenges during COVID which are being faced by school teachers in Noida delivering content to students from home and their surviving strategies.

India presents a heterogeneous socio-economic ethos, rooted within structures of patriarchy and caste, rendering any transformation of traditional gender roles, increasingly challenging. Gender socialisation begins in childhood and is assimilated through schools. Students imbibe gender concepts through textbooks and classroom experiences, which either reinforce their social perceptions or influence them to critique inequalities and bias. Adopting a multi-pronged approach through feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) and content analysis, this research evaluates the images used in Indian school social science textbooks, for constructs of gender representation, structures, and stereotyping. The research reveals that gender structures depicted in textbooks foster patriarchy and gender bias. There is minimal effort to depict feminist activism and little scope to foster gender reflexivity and social debate, which only sustains stereotypical perceptions of gender roles within Indian society.

This article examines the historical backdrop to the involvement of teaching Sisters in convent schooling for girls in India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, since the late nineteenth century. It then explores how, as a consequence of a range of social changes, leadership in convent schools has changed in both countries, across the twentieth century. The Irish Sisters who founded and established these schools commenced "passing the baton" of convent school leadership to Indian and Pakistani women. The article draws on interviews to examine ways in which successive generations of women in the study refer to the legacy of the past, and the issue of women in education leadership.

Literature on adult settlement and integration education in Canada documents the limits of public services supporting the settlement of female newcomers. This study provokes deeper understandings of these limitations by examining the gendered experiences of mature Tamil women who have resided in the province of Ontario, Canada for more than 10 years. Using personal interviews and archival immigration policy documents, this paper argues that despite interacting closely with settlement education programs, mature Tamil immigrant women continue to face gendered and classed barriers to social integration within and outside their communities. Settlement education policies produce temporariness in mature women by making them ineligible for services and supports, thus further scripting their lives on the fringes of their communities. However, mature Tamil immigrant women reject the essentialization of their narratives as continuous historical victims by engaging in relationships with their peers. Friendships between migrant and diaspora women emerge as a unique space to explore agentic resistance to homogenising settlement and integration structures. Theoretical frameworks of this study are anchored in literature discussing neoliberalism, multiculturalism, settlement education, and transnational feminism.

We estimate the returns (measured by hourly earnings) to education, experience, and social networking in India using individual-level panel data from the India Human Development Surveys. We combined the two latest waves of this survey using individual-level identifiers to generate a balanced panel and merged it with various household characteristics. We provide estimates of private returns for an additional year of education and experience by consumption quintiles, gender, caste, and religion in a fixed-effects Heckman model that controls for selection bias. This methodology improves upon estimates of all earlier studies on earnings in India, as most of the literature has relied on cross-section data or pseudo-panel data. We also examine the impact of social networking on earnings, which is under-explored in nationwide studies in India. We find that education significantly and positively affects earnings for all consumption quintiles, gender, caste (except schedule castes), and religious groups. Among economic groups, the highest returns are observed for the third quintile above the poverty line. Returns to females for an additional year of education are nearly double that of males but the difference in starting earnings keeps earnings of males higher for long periods. Among the castes, scheduled castes have the highest returns to education and other minorities among religious groups. Social networking positively impacts males, Hindus, and the quintile just above the poverty line. Experience positively impacts women's earnings, general caste and scheduled caste, Hindus and Other minorities and two consumption quintiles (two and five) above the poverty line.

Good governance enhances efficiency both in public and private sector organizations. Productivity and good governance are closely associated to aid value for investment both in terms of time and money, and end-user satisfaction. Productivity Enhancement and quality improvement of higher education depend on governance-trends and productive leadership of the institution. Discipline, and quality vision set, and policy practiced by the leadership in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) propagate down the timeline-hierarchy. This article addresses the pivotal factors and parameters worldwide studied, accepted and opined in various case studies and policy making schemes for good governance of Higher Education Indian Institution (HEIIs). This is necessary to enable their leadership enhancing the organizational productivity for 21st-century Indian subcontinent. The 3rd largest youth in the world studying in HEIIs would contribute the most to the growth of 21st-century Indian economy and living standards. This shall be possible when educational productivity of HEII-leadership is innovatively transformed into transformative innovation. In this paper effects, consequences, impacts, opportunities, problems and remedies regarding pivotal issues and challenges of and for existing HEIIs for becoming world-class education system are systematically reviewed. Recommendations based upon studies and findings are made for 21st-century HEII-leadership, and practical model is presented to measure the productivity.

The paper seeks to expand our knowledge on the importance of public academic support programmes (ASPs) in higher education (HE) in India, which extend supplementary instruction with the aim to improve academic performance and support academic efforts of students from the socially and economically disadvantaged groups (SEDGs). This paper shows that students from the most disadvantaged amongst the SEDGs, that is, those residing in rural areas and women who experience multiple barriers that compound the effects of their disadvantages, have taken advantage of supplementary instruction classes. These classes have allowed HEIs to account for students' academic needs and challenges related to their socioeconomic disadvantages, that remain unmet in regular classrooms. By targeting educational resources to students who are most disadvantaged, these programmes compensate for the absence of parental support and recognises the underlying socio-economic obstacles of students from achieving academic success at college. Given the acknowledged role of higher education in providing economic and social benefits to individuals, the paper argues that oncampus state enabled ASPs targeting students from the SEDGs make HE in India more equitable and contribute in reducing social inequalities in the wider society

Across the globe, women and racial minorities are underrepresented in leadership. We examined the development of 5-10-year-old children's leadership cognition in India, the world's largest democracy. This cultural context offered the opportunity to study the development of attitudes about gender and to extend examinations of children's conceptions of race to include colorism (the privileging of lighter skin). In Experiment 1, children completed a novel Election Task in which they saw a fictional class with 20 students varying in gender (boys, girls) and race/skin tone (darker-skinned South Asian [Dark-SA], lighter-skinned South Asian [Light-SA], Black, White). Children predicted who would be elected as President, Treasurer, Welcomer, and Notetaker. Children most often chose Light-SA and White students as President. When choosing Presidents, younger children showed an own-gender bias, but by age 9, both boys and girls primarily chose boy Presidents. Importantly, children's choices differed for the other class positions. Next, we asked children to draw a "leader." No boys drew a girl, and girls' drawings were mixed (52% drew girls). In Experiment 2, we replicated the drawing task findings and compared children's drawings of a leader to their drawings of a helper and a scientist. Children most often drew boys and men as leaders and scientists, but not as helpers, suggesting specificity of children's pro-male bias to male-stereotyped positions. Children's conceptions of leadership reflected a male bias and an association between lighter skin and status.

The present study is conducted to examine the English Language Textbook of Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education for class 8th on gender perspective. The Content Analysis method of descriptive and statistical in nature is employed and the Evaluation Tool "Gender-wise occurrence of Evidence is used to examine the total pictures, total references, stereotype and non- stereotype activities and total occupational activities for both male and female depicted in the English Language Textbook of Jammu and Kashmir State board of School Education for class 8th. The Chi-Square test is used to test the hypothesis. The results of the study reveal that there are significantly more picturization of male than females in the English Language textbook. It has been found that there is significantly more number of times references were made to males than females in the English Language textbook. It has been found that there is significant difference in the representation of stereotype and non-stereotype activities depicted in the English Language textbook. It has also been found that there is significant difference of total number of occupational activities for male and female indicated in the English Language textbook.

Traditionally, American library and information science (LIS) education and librarianship have been predominantly white and female-oriented professions. As an international gay male person of color (originally from India) in its ranks, I have embraced social justice scholarship outside and within our bastion institutions of higher learning during a 14.5-year tenure as an LIS educator in the United States. This article reflects on select experiences as a minority along multiple intersectional dimensions of human experience and socially constructed identity markers, including race/ethnicity, national origins, sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Indulging in these musings allows me to decipher layers of complexities shaping faculty interpersonal microaggressions, a perceived lack of equal/equitable recognition of contributions, and limited comparable administrative growth/opportunities. These are discussed as hypothesized encounters in the form of few imagined scenarios or key episodes connected in the form of a searching narrative. It develops an alternative "voice" to identify possible directions that might transform LIS education beyond its "feel good" practices/policies surrounding diversity, inclusion, and collegiality and give it greater relevance in the twenty-first century. The goal is to engage authentic conversations that address behaviors of perceived prejudice, bias, abuse, and discrimination (intentional or unintentional) by LIS faculty/administrators targeting male faculty of color and "marginalized" others (e.g., first-generation graduates) in academic and professional networks.

Our in-depth qualitative interviews with journalism graduate students and professors, from Kashmir, India, show that unlike the rest of India, the region experienced extremely low internet connectivity, and this combined with a lack of access to technology nearly brought classes to a standstill. But students and teachers, used to social disruptions, used the COVID-19 pandemic to learn and practice journalism that was deeply bound to the community and they created "circles of trust" that helped them overcome internet and other technical issues. Ramifications for journalism education in situations of low connectivity and poor technology resources are discussed.

Culture plays an integral role in English language teaching (ELT) and is a necessary component of ELT textbooks. This study explores the issue of cultural representation in the reading components of ELT textbooks in India, which has received little attention in ELT research world-wide. By incorporating 10 ELT textbooks from four states, one national board from India, and a sequential mixed-method design, this research is aimed at investigating the cultural representation of the textbook content, characteristics of people in terms of race, gender and nationality, and the depth of the cultural content. While the results have revealed a general domination of cultural representations originating from Britain, including a major proportion of British, Irish, and generally White characters, a significant amount of gender bias, and overall minimal in-depth cultural engagement, there exists wide regional variations. Language teachers may adapt cultural representations that are relevant with other pedagogical resources to engage English language learners in critical pursuits.

This paper examines leadership challenges in managing digital power and digital poverty, in the delivery of schooling during the Covid-19 emergency lockdown in India. The article suggests that although India is considered a global leader in digital technology, its primary and secondary school system suffers from digital poverty with associated tensions for school leadership. The paper explores the nature of teaching and learning in a selection of girls' schools in India during Covid-19. In the context of the pandemic, school leaders have had to respond quickly to remote learning, supporting teachers to facilitate the use of educational technology. Our research examined the experience of leadership in a cross section of schools from different geographical and socio-economic backgrounds. The respondents reflected on their engagement with digital literacy and remote teaching methodologies, and how the pandemic changed the classroom experience with little or no lead in time to adapt. The article examines how Indian women in positions of educational leadership perceive digital power or poverty and how it affects change and challenge in their leadership responsibility. Conclusions are drawn regarding educational practices operational at present and anticipate considerations which must be acknowledged to support virtual learning into the future.

This paper examines caste bias in Odia language textbooks prescribed by the Government in middle schools in the State of Odisha, India. The analysis focuses on 10 textbooks for Social Science and Odia literature prescribed for Classes IV to VIII. The framework proposed by Sadker and Zittleman (2007) to study gender bias in educational material in the United States is contextualized for an application to Indian textbooks. Content analysis identified seven types of bias, with 'invisibility' bias being the most important form of bias. This first-ever systematic analysis of caste bias within curricular material in India brings to fore the exclusion of Scheduled Castes. The persistence of caste bias across textbooks is in direct violation of the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework-2005 and systematically creates an illusion that Indian society is an equitable one. We suggest that there is a need for further evaluation of regional language school textbooks to assess the extent of bias in curricular material.

The #MeToo Movement has brought sexual harassment, abuse, and assault experienced by females to the forefront of society. Within the athletic realm, this falls under the umbrella term "maltreatment of athletes." While maltreatment has been reported for decades, victims' voices have been amplified in recent years. For various political and social reasons, the maltreatment of female athletes from around the world is not as well understood. In this study, female athletes from India and Pakistan reported their perceptions of maltreatment by male coaches. Female athletes with male coaches in both countries participated in this study (N = 395). The athletes represented a large variety of sports (> 26). Participants (M[subscript age] = 20.57 ± 2.59; M[subscript years of athletic experience] = 2.73 ± 1.49) completed the Sport-Specific Touch and Behaviour Versus Unwanted Intimacy From Coaches questionnaire. Three composite dependent variables were assessed: Unwanted Sexual Behavior, Physical and Verbal Behavior With a Sexual Undertone, and Sexist and Discriminatory Behavior. Main effect differences for the three composite variables were observed for country (p < 0.001, [eta-squared] = 0.30), with no differences observed for type of sport or the interaction effect. The Pakistani athletes reported greater acceptance of male coaches' maltreatment than did the Indian athletes. The observed differences were large (i.e., Hedges' g values ranging from 1.91 to 3.00). Female athletes from Pakistan were more accepting than were Indian athletes of a wide range of sexual maltreatment experiences by their male coaches. There is an urgent need to eradicate such behaviors from the sports world.

In this article, I examine the lived experiences of two young women from urban slums in India who participated in an after-school program focusing on issues of gender inequality within their homes, communities, and schools. Through unstructured and semi-structured interviews and observations, this paper argues that young women from marginalized spaces resist patriarchal structures of society through everyday acts of resistance. Using narrative inquiry, the data reveal that young women use different yet interconnected means to resist oppression in their daily lives. The article makes a case for expanding feminist resistance scholarship to be inclusive of young women at the periphery and their everyday resistance for finding a voice.

The Indian Government's 12th Five Year Plan features ambitious goals regarding the upskilling of women in India. While the Plan acknowledges Indian women's continued inequality, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes (a main avenue for upskilling) pose considerable challenges. There is significant work to be done if India aspires to meet the 12th Plan's goals. Moreover, to achieve them in a socially just manner, greater efforts are required to include and amplify women's voices throughout the process. In pursuit of this aim, the authors of this research note share insights from the first stages of their study of an upskilling programme in the non-formal education sector. They argue for a bottom-up approach to understand how women wish to participate in this programme and in government-recognised TVET more broadly. To understand the women's perspectives, the authors use the notions of "third-space" frameworks and "scapes". These concepts go beyond simply acknowledging the need for labour upskilling and offer opportunities to critique gender biases, stereotypes and patriarchal practices, while formulating new ideas about how to engage as active participants in Indian society. Based on these insights, the authors offer a path forward by directly engaging with women on the ground level, using a bottom-up approach.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, "achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls", emphasises the need for "providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes [which] will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large" (UN, 2015). Millions of girls are forced into early marriage for economic and cultural reasons and denied the opportunity for education. Within the context of sustainable development, it is critical to raise awareness among communities that child marriage has wide ranging negative consequences for development and that allowing girls to have education and training can add enormous value to their society as well as their personal and family lives. This study aims to identify the role of community engagement and local community organisations in contributing towards ending child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) through ensuring equitable access of marginalised and out-of-school girls to education and training. The study was based on data collected from surveys that had been administered to 755 out-of-school girls, affected by CEFM in both urban and rural areas of three selected South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) countries, that is, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India.

There is a need for individuals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers to drive the innovation and research potential of Europe. Yet, there is expected to be a decrease in the number of STEM professionals, as there is less student interest in STEM fields of the study. Studies show that STEM classes that focus on inquiry-based science education (IBSE) are engaging and encourage students to become more fascinated with STEM fields. The Ark of Inquiry Project involves a consortium of STEM- and education-focused universities and organizations across Europe that created an online platform with IBSE and STEM lessons. The UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe conducted the pilot phase of the Ark of Inquiry Project in Italy from September 2015 to February 2016. In this paper, we will discuss some of the barriers to the expansion of this online STEM education project that was noted by the 14 participating Italian teachers of the pilot phase and 30 educators from India, Germany, Canada, and Denmark who participated through online surveys. We discovered that teachers must be able to overcome barriers of access to technology, misconceptions about women's abilities in STEM fields, and the effect of poor pre-service teacher training as it relates to implementing IBSE effectively for student-centered learning. This paper will focus on how the above factors hinder the growth of teachers as designers and facilitators of student-centered IBSE curriculum and will recommend how The Ark of Inquiry Project can be scaled up to impact the rest of the world.

The Fourth Conference on Women at Beijing (1995) underlined the importance of gender mainstreaming; spurring India to provide for separate Gender Budgeting in 2005-06. The Constitution tries to make fine balance between right to equality and positive discrimination for promoting gender justice in India. Yet high levels of Gender Inequality Index (GII), coexist with high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, after India opted for economic liberalization in the 1990s. This paper brings out these trends and how the Supreme Court, as the watchdog of fundamental rights, has played a stellar role in ensuring gender justice. The paper does a trend analysis of gender budgeting and the inept implementation of flagship programmes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Nirbhaya, due to the lack of coordinated approach. Making comparison with developed and Emerging Market Economies (EME), the paper underscores the importance of earmarking handsome allocation to education and health care. The issue of gender justice is not merely an issue of adequate allocation or effective judicial redressal, but embraces a larger concern viz. the "culture of silence" that pervades our patriarchal society. The Oslo summit underscored the importance of value based education to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Gender diversity and equality in the workplace has been much researched and spoken about in the corporate sector but the higher education sector in India remains largely untouched by it, probably because women seemingly far outnumber men in the teaching fraternity. However, data also suggests that most women in the higher education sector remain restricted to middle-ranking posts, rising as high as heads of department, deans, controller of examination and even registrars but hardly ever becoming vice-chancellors. In a sector which has traditionally attracted many women as their preferred career choice, lack of an adequate talent pool cannot be the answer. This paper is a study exploring the barriers and enablers for women academicians' ascent to leadership roles. It also presents strategies to close this gap and facilitate pathways for women to hold leadership roles in Indian universities. This paper is one of the first few on women's leadership in Indian universities.

Background: Limited evidence exists on the effectiveness of using an entertainment-education methodology to address multiple public health issues and of using participatory street theatre to improve public understanding related to public health. Objective: To assess the feasibility, acceptability and impact of the Actor-Doctor project, an intervention involving theatre professionals and medical specialists to jointly deliver street-theatre-based public health education. Design: A real-world, mixed-methods post-intervention study evaluated the Actor-Doctor project among 486 participants in Ahmedabad, India, in 2017. Setting and method: Focus group discussions with actors and semi-structured interviews with doctors and implementers assessed project feasibility, acceptability and perceived impact. Post-intervention surveys among actors, audience and a control group assessed impact on knowledge and attitudes related to select public health issues. Quantitative data were analysed using multivariable regression, and qualitative data were analysed using an inductive thematic analysis. Results: The Actor-Doctor project was feasible to implement, as 20 street theatre performances on five public health themes were developed and staged. Members of the audience showed higher knowledge of environmental health, anaemia and openness to discussing sexual health issues, compared to a control group (omega squared 0.03-0.24; p < 0.001). Actors and doctors collaborating to create theatre-based public health education derived satisfaction from the project. Balancing scientific accuracy and entertainment, especially humour was challenging. Conclusion: The Actor-Doctor project was instrumental in improving public-health-related engagement between actors, doctors and the public.

The articles in this themed issue explore global educational experiences that embrace various cultures, traditions, religions and identities. Collectively this work offers valuable insights into unexplored areas of research, illuminating issues that intersect across race, ethnicity and gender. The significance of these studies lies in the solutions, centred on social justice, that reflect resistance, activism and innovation harnessed in response to the problems discussed. This collection helps to bridge the divide between north and south in the academic world, demonstrating that answers to educational inequalities can be found in models for transformation both within and beyond the western hemisphere.

Gender disparity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in higher education is a matter of concern across the world. Expansion of the higher education sector in the early twenty-first century in India has enabled to bring attitudinal changes in Indian families especially towards females' STEM higher education. The present study aims to understand the trend in gender parity in STEM disciplines at various levels of higher education in India through All India Survey on Higher Education, Government of India (2010-2011 to 2018-2019). The study uses the Gender Parity Index (GPI) method to calculate the status of female in STEM higher education. The results show that there is gender parity in overall disciplines at under-graduation, post-graduation, and M.Phil. levels. In STEM disciplines, enrolment of female is higher than male in biological sciences at all levels, but physical sciences show lower enrolment of female. Computer engineering, information technology, and electronics engineering have shown improvement in enrolment of female within the engineering and technology category. Gender parity is poor in mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and electrical engineering at all levels of higher education. The complex and multi-layered gender relations in wider society impact females' access to STEM higher education and employment.

Purpose: The purpose of this review is to critically analyse the extant research and help readers understand the ways the school-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) can contribute towards youth development and urge policymakers to implement nationwide good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE. Design/methodology/approach: This literature review has been designed using the extant information available on Google Scholar, Web of Science (WoS) and PubMed. Findings: The findings of this review inform that there is a significant need amongst the youth of the day for good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE. Also, the findings suggest that there are significant associations between school-based CSE and youth development. Research limitations/implications: This research paper although draws from extant literature about sexuality education and its delivery across the globe, it applies the sexuality education scenario in India. Practical implications: The findings of this review aim to implicate nationwide policy-level changes to implement CSE in the school curricula. There are more practical behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, which are discussed in the review. Social implications: Due to the behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, it may help in the upbringing of responsible citizens who are free of health complications, who can make independent health-related decisions and look after each other in the community. Originality/value: This review is an original contribution from the author. Whilst there is extant literature about CSE and youth development, this article fills the void by investigating the interdependent contributions that both the concepts can make to one another and encourages more research on this topic.

Microfinance has been recognized globally as a poverty alleviating strategy and particularly as a gender equality enhancing approach. There have been immense, intense and nuanced debates in the field of international development, feminist studies and comparative social policy regarding the role of microfinance in addressing gendered poverty. This paper provides an account of these debates and the conceptual and theoretical perspectives underpinning them. These debates are used as a way to frame the dominant understandings of the relationship between gendered poverty and education in the context of microfinance policies and practices. These global discourses are interrogated against particular representations of the same by consumers of microfinance. In other words, employing narratives of 27 in-depth interviews with consumers of microfinance and their kin from India and Australia, the paper highlights how global discourses are contested in the local everyday lives of poor women and men. By doing so, the paper calls for re-casting educational goals, in poverty alleviation and gender equality strategies, as moving beyond access for women to expanding freedoms of women and men.

Conferences are key sites for the development of academic careers; however multiple studies have shown that conferences are exclusionary on the basis of gender and other axes of social disadvantage. This study focuses on India and as such also incorporates caste as an axis of privilege and disadvantage in relation to access to conferences. Conferences in this paper are framed within a broader professional development agenda, which is the way in which conferences are located in Indian higher education policy discourses, and a social exclusion perspective is taken as the analytical lens. The paper is based on data from a large-scale national study of social inequalities in higher education, which included quantitative analysis of administrative records and qualitative analysis of interviews with academics on their participation in conferences and professional development activities. Key findings include that participation in conferences is proportionally lower for women and scheduled caste academics than for men and upper-caste academics, and that access to conferences is embroiled in relational processes of social exclusion which operate in the academy, despite formal policies being in place. The article recommends further scrutiny of policy implementation and replication of this analysis across different country contexts.

The growth of private schools in India has contributed significantly to increased student enrollment but also raises certain questions, such as how parents living in informal settlements can support their children's school attendance and seek alternative options, such as private schools, for their children. This paper addresses these under-researched aspects by focusing on the concerns of Muslim parents (who have a minority status in India) living in unauthorized colonies in relation to selecting a school. The data were generated through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Drawing upon data from 13 principals and 35 households in unauthorized colonies in Delhi, India, the key findings suggest that parents face difficult conundrums due to geographic and social background constraints. Issues regarding the selection of private schools and the challenges of finding schools are discussed. This study provides a different context that should be used to inform policymakers and educators examining schooling options for marginalized communities/parents in illegal settlements.