We investigate how context might influence adolescent boys' and girls' ambition and the impact of gender role conformity and social status. Adolescent participants (N = 270) reported their ambition in one of three experimentally manipulated contexts: future education, future work, or a control. Boys experienced a significant negative drop in…

This qualitative study employs a Bourdieusian framework to explore how urban middle-class parents in Pakistan support their daughters' education while transmitting cultural capital. Parents emphasize "talim-o-tarbiyat," referring to education and nurturing. I argue that, owing to the availability of educational resources and the…

The paper argues that the mother's association with the child's schooling and educational needs is not just limited and peculiar to the middle-class families, as the literature suggests, but it is increasingly true of poor and working-class families too. This paper discusses how mothers from a poor neighbourhood in India straddle between household…

This study examines the challenges of female doctoral students in China at the intersection of neoliberal education and Confucian gender roles. Employing qualitative interviews with 12 students, it explores how they navigate academic pressures and societal expectations. Leveraging Margaret Archer's reflexivity theory, key findings show that these…

This small-scale study investigates the relationship between gender ideology and co-ed secondary school boys' intention to participate in biology post-GCSE. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, questionnaires (n = 96) and interviews (n = 13) were carried out to collect data on the intention to participate in school science subjects, gendered…

This study examined what led undergraduate Israeli-Arab students to choose to study for a degree in Education at a Jewish academic institution, and the influence of this academic choice on them. The study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 33 students. Findings show that the choice stemmed from a desire to lead social change…

This article investigates students' post-secondary education transition processes in Cameroon through the lens of agency. Situated in a country where the higher education participation rate is fairly low, our article explores how students agentically negotiate access to higher education within structural constraints of socio-economic status and…

This article explores a number of themes concerning the way in which education discourses position, problematise and respond to pregnant and parenting girls. Much of the literature centres on a discourse which celebrates a certain type of parenting girl, who returns to school thanks to determination and a silencing of other identities. This idea…

On March 13, 2020, the government of South Sudan implemented emergency lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fears that the pandemic would reverse efforts by the government and civil society to keep girls in school were realized and reported incidences of teen pregnancy increased. Prior to the pandemic, early marriage and teen…

This study examines Spanish secondary school teachers' views of gender differences in academic achievement and study choices. Thirty-six secondary school teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. Most teachers acknowledged that girls had better school performance, particularly in reading comprehension. Some were also acquainted with a…

This article explores perceptions of the role of education as a potential medium of transformation and a vehicle to challenge and renegotiate symbolic and cultural notions of gender identity. Drawing on data collected at two time points over 10 years, it considers four young women from working-class backgrounds in England who aspired to and then…

An essentialist, "traditional", Maasai gender ideology that poorly reflects the day-to-day gender realities of residents is being reproduced and dominating in the modern schooling setting of a Maasai community in Southern Kenya. Through an ethnographic analysis based on long-term fieldwork and mixed-method approaches, this paper explores…

China has seen dramatic transformations in ideals of femininity since the 1970s. This article explores what it entails for young women of the only-child generation to construct "modern" womanhood within a context of multiple and conflicting gender discourses. Based on life history interviews in Beijing, the article shows that both a…

Astonishingly little is known about the relationship between high educational achievements and suicidal behaviour among women. This is remarkable given that a woman breaking into traditionally male-dominant spheres is a well established example of social-role marginality. The current study combines fatal and non-fatal suicidal behaviour and…

Intergenerational relationships and gender roles in China are in transition because of ideational and structural changes resulting from social movements and policies in the past half a century. Using a mixed-methods design, we examine Shanghai fathers' involvement in their adolescent daughters' lives. In contrast to traditional stereotypes,…