title: Power and resistance: exploring the conceptions and experiences of gender and career aspirations of young people in Bangladesh
Creators: name: Akbar, Tahsina
Publisher: name: University of Glasgow
Year: 2025

description: The thesis investigates the conceptions of gender and career aspirations among young people in Bangladesh who participated in a gender-sensitive programme provided by an NGO against the backdrop of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 and 5. The thesis adopts a qualitative methodology collecting data from the Southeast part of Bangladesh. This study aims to understand how the discourses of gender and career aspirations are shaped by other socio-patriarchal discourses in Bangladesh and how these young people negotiate their positions.

In 2015, the UN General Assembly proposed 17 goals to achieve global sustainable development as part of the 'Agenda 2030' (UN, 2015). SDG 4 is to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all", and SDG 5 is to "achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls" (ibid). As a UN member state, commitment to achieving the SDGs significantly shifted Bangladesh's education focus from quantity to quality (BANBEIS, 2022). However, quality inclusive education is a significant challenge for Bangladesh (Rahman, 2021; GED, 2022), and the primary evidence in Bangladesh around inclusive quality education is based on quantitative studies with scattered investigations (Asadullah, 2016; Golam and Kusakabe, 2018; Biwas and Biswas, 2020). In this study, I argue that it is necessary to understand the conceptions and experiences of young people in relation to gender and educational aspirations to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education for all (Davies, 2003; Francis, 2006). 

The research design of this study draws on qualitative feminist research utilising photo-elicitation and semi-structured interviews as data-collection methods that create a scope for the participants to share their experiences in their own words (Denzin and Guba, 2011; Coleman, 2016). The study consists of twenty female and male participants based on their self-identification. However, this study primarily focuses on the conceptions and experiences of the female young people and includes male perspectives to enrich the findings. Theoretically, the study adopts a feminist poststructuralist stance with Foucauldian theories and feminist ideas around power, discipline, and resistance to analyse how female young people are coerced, disciplined, and even punished to conform to dominant discourses of gender and career aspirations. The study also brings the spotlight on how these female young people negotiate and exercise agency to make alternative discourses possible.

The study contributes to knowledge creation by employing a feminist poststructuralist analysis of power/knowledge and discourses in educational research with a focus on gender in a South Asian context. It is a valuable example of a Foucauldian study with a feminist stance exploring patriarchy, violence, and inequality that is considered marginal in Foucault's work (Ramazanouglu, 1993). Thus, the study furthers the Foucauldian debate. The research also creates knowledge by uncovering ways discourses influence female and male young people differently. It also discusses how power/knowledge is continuously constructed and re-constructed making space for alternative discourses. The findings can support teachers to understand young people's conceptions of gender and career aspirations to make schools, classrooms, and playgrounds more gender inclusive.