Principal Investigators: Emily Henderson (CES) and Ann Stewart (Law School)

Funder: Fair Chance Foundation; Warwick Collaborative Postgraduate Research Scholarships; Centre for Education Studies; Warwick Law School.

Partners: Dr Manish Jain, Ambedkar University, India; Dr Nidhi Sabharwal, NIEPA, India; Professor Nandini Manjrekar, TISS Mumbai, India.

Visit the project website here

Project overview:

1. Haryana experiences significant gender-based practices that affect the ability of young people to access and remain within the education system, and to progress into higher education.
2. The project aims are therefore: to contribute to capacity building in Indian higher education through two funded doctorates and project activities such as methodological workshops; to establish which factors affect young people’s progression to higher education, and how these factors are gendered; to design, implement and evaluate a programme of actions that targets obstacles identified in the first stage of the study; to produce useful, robust evidence that may bring about social change.
3. Baseline evidence will initially be gathered about the gendered educational trajectories of students who are in their first year of higher education in the state of Haryana, and the factors which influenced their entry to and choice of higher education institution.
4. The evidence will be collected through biographical, narrative interviews and wider surveying methods with current students (first-year undergraduates including men and women, from a range of disciplines, and across the state of Haryana).

Our focus:

1. The project focusses on gendered social relations and gender differences in choices, obstacles and opportunities for young people as they progress through the education system, and ultimately intends to devise a programme of actions that can bring about positive social change.
2. Higher education offers young people the possibility of a far wider range of opportunities in life. Through assessment of the communities that currently exist in the higher education system, the project will develop an understanding of who does and does not make it to higher educational level and reveal the challenges and barriers that result in some young people not being able to benefit from the opportunities that higher education offers.

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