Abstract
There is a long-held claim in Zanzibar, Tanzania, that girls fail and drop out of secondary school at higher rates than boys. This commonly held belief, or gendered social script, has been reproduced in reports and policies authored by international and government institutions. This chapter investigates why Zanzibari girls are portrayed as falling behind boys despite current data that invalidates this claim. Since 2007, the author has been tracking over 1,145 youth from first grade through secondary school with her colleagues from Zanzibar’s Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT). Together they have analyzed when and why youth leave school and the process of being pushed or pulled of their education. This chapter follows the researchers’ journey from uncovering faulty assumptions to engaging youth as agents in popular theater performances and in re/writing of gendered social scripts. The research urges policymakers to consider girls’ and boys’ narratives on who is leaving school and why.
The author would like to acknowledge and thank her research partners, Abrahman Faki Othman and Ahmad (Bello) Ali Mohamed of MoEVT for their collaboration, as well as Tabshir Ismail Abdullah, Humaida Salum Othman, Global Empowerment Theatre, and the group of adolescents who have shared their stories for this study.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The names of the schools and youth in this chapter are pseudonyms. The Form 2 students in this study were between 15 and 17 years of age. I use girls/boys and young women/men interchangeably to intentionally capture the ambiguity and limbo of this stage. The youth used various labels for themselves, girls/boys, men/women, and male/female, which I have used in this chapter. As policy and praxis in Zanzibar uses a gender binary, I also follow this practice.
- 2.
Compulsory education in Zanzibar is twelve years of schooling, following the pattern of 2-6-4, or two years of preschool, six years of primary school (Standards 1–6), and four years of ordinary-level secondary school (Forms 1–4). After ordinary-level there is an optional two years of advanced-level secondary school (Forms 5–6) before higher education (MoEVT, 2006). Standard 1 is equivalent to Grade 1 in the US system, and Forms 1–4 are equivalent to Grades 7–10.
- 3.
Form 2 is equivalent to the second year of ordinary-level secondary school, and equivalent to Grade 8.
- 4.
The Gender Parity Index (GPI) for Form 2 enrollments in 1991 was 1.08 (girls exceeding boys), where GPI is calculated as the total number of girls over total number of boys. GPI equals 1.00 at parity.
- 5.
I use the term “discourse” in this research in part to refer to policy language or rhetoric, but also as culturally and historically embedded systems of representation, beliefs, and values of girls’ education commonly held by MoEVT, international development agencies, etc. This draws on Foucault’s (1972) and Mohanty’s (1988) notions of discourse.
- 6.
- 7.
School-assigned labels included: “current student,” “dropout,” “unknown,” “married,” “pregnant,” or “dead.”
- 8.
Two other schools participated in this popular theater approach research. However, I am focusing on the Baobab students as they were part of our original longitudinal study.
- 9.
Over 98 percent of Zanzibar is Muslim (Pew Research Center 2012). During conversations in the course of the research it was revealed that some Zanzibaris found serving pork and alcohol, items forbidden in the Qur’an, at the hotels to be problematic. For others, being surrounded by women and men in beach attire challenged their cultural and spiritual norms of dress.
- 10.
All quotes are translated by the author from Swahili into English. See Morris (2018) for the full Swahili quotes.
- 11.
Thank you to Dr. Tammy Owens for lending me this concept and to Ray for notions on how girls of color curate their own narratives.
- 12.
I created this term as an adaptation of “pathologizing girlhood.”
References
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving?. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Adely, Fida. 2012. Gendered Paradoxes: Educating Jordanian Women in Nation, Faith and Progress. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Amory, Deborah. P. 1994. “The Politics of Identity on Zanzibar.” PhD diss., Stanford University.
Askew, Kelly. 2002. Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Boal, Augusto. 1985. Theatre of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Theater Communications Group.
Brown, Heidi, Cristin Gordon-Maclean, Kija Nyalali, Catherine Maternowska, and Adrienne Testa. 2013. Unintended Pregnancy Among Teenagers in Arusha and Zanzibar, Tanzania: A Situation Analysis. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Marie Stopes International. Accessed December 29, 2019. http://mariestopes.org/sites/default/files/MST.Teenage.PregnancyStudy.Report.pdf.
Decker, Corrie R. 2014. “Biology, Islam and the Science of Sex Education in Colonial Zanzibar.” Past and Present 222 (1): 215–47. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtt016.
Center for African Studies, University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana. n.d. Swahili Proverbs: Methali ya Kiswahili [website]. Accessed December 28, 2019 http://swahiliproverbs.afrst.illinois.edu/index.htm.
Fair, Laura. 2001. Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-abolition Urban Zanzibar 1890–1945. Athens, OH: University of Ohio Press.
Fine, Michelle. 1991. Reframing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of an Urban High School. New York, NY: SUNY Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon.
Freire, Paulo. 1968. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder.
Holmes, Jennifer. 2013. “Performing Through Layers: Reading the World Through Theater in Zanzibar.” PhD diss., New York University.
Hummel, John, Wineaster Anderson, Ken Wood, Alessia Lombardo, and Adriann Kaufmann. 2018. Assessment of the Impact of Tourism on Communities and Children in Zanzibar. Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Bureau Wyser and UNICEF. Accessed December 28, 2019 https://www.unicef.org/tanzania/media/786/file/Tanzania-Impact-of-Tourism-Zanzibar-2019.pdf.
Kaufman, Michelle R., Alyssa Mooney, Benjamin Kamala, Najmeh Modarres, Robert Karam, and Deo Ng’Wanansabi. 2013. “Effects of the Fataki Campaign: Addressing Cross-generational Sex in Tanzania by Mobilizing Communities to Intervene.” AIDS and Behavior 17 (6): 2053–2062. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-013-0428-x.
Khoja-Moolji, Shenila. 2018. Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Khurshid, Ayesha and Brittany Pitts. 2017. “Malala: The Story of a Muslim Girl and a Muslim Nation.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40 (3): 424–435. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1346587.
Kirk, Jackie, Claudia Mitchell, and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh. 2010. “Toward Political Agency for Girls.” In Girlhood: A Global History, edited by Jennifer Helgren and Colleen A. Vasconcellos, 14–29. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Larsen, Kjersti. 2000. “The Other Side of ‘Nature’: Expanding Tourism, Changing Landscapes, and Problems of Privacy in Urban Zanzibar.” In Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa, edited by Vigdis Broch-due and Richard A. Schroeder, 198–219. Stockholm, Sweden: Nordiska Africanstitutet.
Loimeier, Roman. 2009. Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills: The Politics of Islamic Education in 20th Century Zanzibar. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Mahmood, Saba. 2001. “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival.” Cultural Anthropology 16 (2): 202–236. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2001.16.2.202.
Mains, David. 2011. Hope Is Cut: Youth, Unemployment, and the Future in Urban Ethiopia. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Mlama, Penina. 1991. Culture and Development. Upsala, Sweden: Nordiska Africanstitutet.
Ministry of Education (MoE). 1995. Review of Progress Toward Education for All. Stone Town, Zanzibar: MoE.
MoEVT. 2006. Zanzibar Education Policy. Stone Town, Zanzibar: MoEVT.
MoEVT. 2014. Educational Statistical Abstract 2010–2013. Stone Town, Zanzibar: MoEVT.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1988. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” Feminist Review 30 (9): 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004.
Morris, Emily. 2018. “Performing Graduates, Dropouts, and Pushouts: The Gendered Scripts and Aspirations of Secondary School Students in Zanzibar.” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Morris, Emily, Abrahman Othman, Asha Mohammed, James Mitchell, and Miriam Philip. 2009. Learning Gains Assessment in Zanzibar: More than Child’s Play. Washington, DC: Education Development Center.
Morris, Monique. 2016. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. New York, NY: The New Press.
Murphy, Paud, Georgina Rawle, and Nicola Ruddle. 2016. Zanzibar Education Situation Analysis Final Report. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford Policy Management.
Myers, Garth. 1993. “Reconstructing Ng’ambo: Town Planning and Development on the Other Side of Zanzibar.” PhD diss., University of California.
O’Malley, Gabrielle E. 2000. “Marriage and Morality: Negotiating Gender and Respect in Zanzibar Town.” PhD diss., University of Washington.
Pew Research Center (PRC). 2012. The Global Religious Landscape. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Puar, Jasbir K., and Amit Rai. 2002. “Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots.” Social Text 20 (3): 117–48. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/31948.
Purpura, Allyson. 1997. Knowledge and Agency: The Social Relations of Islamic Expertise in Zanzibar Town. PhD diss., The City University of New York.
Ray, Ranita. 2018. “Identity of Distance: How Economically Marginalized Black and Latina Women Navigate Risk Discourse and Employ Feminist Ideals.” Social Problems, 65 (4) (November): 456–72. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spx025.
Ridge, Natasha. 2014. Education and the Reverse Gender Divide in the Gulf States: Embracing the Global, Ignoring the Local. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Sayer, Andrew. 2005. The Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Shirazi, Roozbeh. 2012. “Performing the ‘Knights of Change’: Male Youth Narratives and Practices of Citizenship in Jordanian Schools.” Comparative Education 48 (1): 71–85.
Tembon, Mercy, and Lucia Fort. 2008. Girls’ Education in the 21st Century: Gender Equality, Empowerment, and Economic Growth. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
The World Bank. 2014. Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. Accessed December 29, 2019. https://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099080014368/DID_Girls_edu.pdf.
United Nations (UN). 2000. Tanzania, United Nations Common Country Assessment. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 2011. Children and Women in Tanzania: Volume II Zanzibar. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: UNICEF.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2015. Gender and Education for All 2000–2015: Achievements and Challenges: 2015 Global Education Monitoring Report. Paris, France: Author.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). n.d. Youth in Zanzibar. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: UNFPA. Accessed December 29, 2019. https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/2015-efa-gender-report.
Unterhalter, Elaine. 2014. “Measuring Education for the Millennium Development Goals: Reflections on Targets, Indicators, and a Post-2015 Framework.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal for People-Centered Development. 15 (2–3): 176–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2014.880673.
Ziddy, M. Issa. 2007. Challenges Facing the Implementation of a Policy on Girls’ Education in Zanzibar. Paper presented at the Policy Analysis Unit (PAU) and Human Science Research Council’s (HSRC) 2007 Education & Poverty Reduction Strategies: Issues of Policy Coherence, Colloquium, Pretoria, South Africa.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Morris, E.M. (2021). Re/Writing Gendered Scripts: A Longitudinal Research Partnership Reshaping Gender and Education Policy and Praxis in Zanzibar, Tanzania. In: Levison, D., Maynes, M.J., Vavrus, F. (eds) Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63632-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63632-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-63631-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-63632-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)