Female Educational Empowerment: Case Study from the Collective Life Stories of the Children's Stage in Rural Communities
Authors: Marrero Joel Iglesias , García Norma Angélica Ocampo , Castro Fernando Olaya 
Published: November 2024

Objective: Understand the meaning that a group of adult women gives to personal experiences in the process of educational empowerment, when studying a degree within their living conditions, to identify the driving and inhibiting factors that emerge from their collective life stories focused on the stage of childhood in rural communities.

Theoretical Framework: This topic presents the main concepts and theories that support the research, among which the following stand out: factors of female empowerment, personal dimension, dimension of close relationships, collective dimension, theories of female empowerment.

Method: The research was carried out from the qualitative paradigm under the approach of life stories, within biographical-narrative studies. It was carried out with women from San Antonio Acahualco, a town in the Municipality of Zinacantepec, State of Mexico. To select the participants, a type of convenience sampling was used, selecting the most accessible cases and due to the proximity of the subjects to the researchers. Seven women whose ages ranged between 32 and 40 years collaborated. To select the informants, the following inclusion criteria were considered: being a woman, having finished high school, living in the town of San Antonio Acahualco, being enrolled in the Women Building the Future program and being available to be interviewed in various occasions. Furthermore, to protect the anonymity of the participants, established keys for qualitative research were used: S (Subject); F (Feminine); 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 (assigned number). To collect the information, two fundamental techniques were used, the in-depth interview and natural semantic networks. As part of the in-depth interview, the interview script and the stimulus word were generated with the consequent activities to follow in the case of the natural semantic network. A letter of informed consent was also signed by the participating women, and, regarding the interviews and natural semantic network, they were carried out in an appropriate place and with full respect for the privacy of the informants.

Results and Discussion: Driving and inhibiting factors of female empowerment were identified, highlighting among the former happiness, affection, study and play, among the latter insecurity, economic and educational problems. In this context, there is a need to investigate proposals to transform adverse situations from the family, socioeconomic and school conditions in which the women lived. The limitation to the childhood stage to collect information from life stories must be recognized, so it is suggested to build the proposals based on the analysis of other life paths.

Research Implications: Research like this favors the commitment of women's studies institutes and social management observatories, to generate well-founded proposals for cultural changes and improvements to rural environments. It involves the efforts of those who promote a balanced image of women and promote strategies aimed at eliminating sexism and gender stereotypes.

Originality/Value: Research based on life stories is of great theoretical-practical value, since in them the dialectical relationship is discovered, the daily negotiation between aspiration and possibility, between utopia and reality, between creation and acceptance; without forgetting that its information comes from everyday life, common sense, the explanations and reconstructions that as an individual make to live and survive daily. It is an original way of becoming interested in understanding the social phenomenon, from the actor's point of view. In addition, it considers the emotional meaning of the things, situations, experiences and relationships that affect people. Investigating from this vision is relevant to investigate the human factor of women, considering the internal source of empowerment to also incorporate its community scope.