Amber Nicole Jensen and Dr. Renata Forste, Sociology
A low level of education, especially among women, is a basic characteristic of all developing countries. Research indicates that in third-world countries, “women remain under-represented at all levels of education relative to men. Fewer females than males enter educational programs…; fewer receive technical and vocational training; and women account for a very small proportion of enrollment in postsecondary education” (Kelly 1). A key factor inhibiting women’s education in developing countries is lack of participation. Nelly Stromquist identifies “economic conditions of the household, cultural and religious values, parental aspirations for children’s education, [and] distance to school” as determinants of educational participation. In addition to these external conditions, Tinker and Bramsen have identified “cultural attitudes which mediate against women’s full participation” as one of three major obstacles to women’s education (Finn 107). External obstacles will remain if underlying cultural attitudes do not value education for women. Kelly suggests that new research on women’s education “requires asking new questions that are generated by looking at the world from the perspective of women’s lives” (2).
During a 10-week period in El Salvador, I accepted Kelly’s challenge. I approach my research on the factors of women’s participation in education from within the women’s world. I interviewed dozens of women and observed their daily routines and interactions as a means to understand women’s attitudes toward education in a representative third-world country.
I created a list of questions in Spanish to guide my interviews with the Salvadoran women. The first section included demographic information: ages, levels of educational attainment, and professions of the interviewees and their families. Subsequent open-ended questions aimed to generate informal conversations, allowing me to ascertain the women’s feelings about their own educational backgrounds as well as their hopes for their children’s education. Some questions were indirect, allowing the women to relate their own experiences: “What do you value most in your life?” Others were more direct in probing their individual ways of thinking about education: “How much schooling do you think is necessary for a woman to be successful in life?” and “What are some impediments to education? Are they different for men and women?” I hoped to connect the women’s general attitudes toward education with the data I collected on their levels of participation and those of their children. I expected to find that women with a higher level of education valued education and were meaningfully motivated, thus ensuring their children’s high level of participation. I expected to find that less educated women would value education less and consequently did not encourage their daughters’ participation.
To gather a representative sample, I interviewed 25 Salvadoran women, ranging in age from 22 to 73 years. All had at least one child, and all but one had daughters. Though 22 of the 25 cited “domestic tasks” as a daily responsibility, some also worked from their homes as seamstresses or at nearby food stands selling fruit or pupusas. Some were professionals, working as nurses or secretaries in the capital city, San Salvador. They came from varying levels of educational background, from having no formal schooling to having completed a university degree.
The most apparent trend that emerged from my research was that differing levels of educational participation represented less of a gender gap than it did a generational gap. Unfailingly, all my interviewees told me that they hoped their daughters would receive as much education as possible. The overwhelming majority indicated to me that they had received more education than their own mothers had, and they expected their daughters to complete even more years of schooling. Regardless of the mother’s level of education, my data verified that each younger generation attended more years of school than their mothers did. One 26-year-old woman disclosed that her own mother, having received a 3rd grade education, realized the importance of the education she was unable to receive. This illiterate mother then sacrificed to pay for her daughter and two sons to attend the national university, where they studied chemistry, law, and theology. Of the eight illiterate women I interviewed, seven raised children that attended school for between 3 and 11 years. One woman, having completed only a first grade education, boasted of having four children who had received high school degrees. She identified a generational difference, saying, “It was not important for people to study when I was young, but now you have to complete your bachillerato” (high school degree) to be successful.
These women were evidence to me of shifting values. The culture has come to expand its vision of a woman’s role, both encouraging education and allowing expansion out of the domestic domain. None of the women I interviewed discriminated between how much education they expected for their sons and their daughters. Instead, they told me that the cultural attitudes are changing, that women are expected to attend school and acquire jobs, just as men always have.
Many women acknowledged having seen this shift in their lifetimes. They recounted stories of not attending school as children because, as women, they were needed at home to help their mothers with domestic duties or childcare. One 29-year-old mother was not allowed to travel to school alone as a child, so she stayed home with her grandmother and learned to cook and clean. She cannot read or write her name, but told me that she wants her daughters to be educated so they do not have to andar preguntando, relying on other people to get around in day-to-day responsibilities. Every woman I interviewed indicated a hope that the future of their families will improve as their children—both sons and daughters—are educated.
Looking forward, the results of this small-scale research are promising. If trends continue, we should see a greater level of educational participation in third-world countries by both males and females. Cultural values are shifting to support education for everyone. By motivating their children to be educated, those who have not had the opportunity for education in their lifetimes will gradually overcome the obstacles that have inhibited educational participation in the past.