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Challenging the status quo: theenabling role of gender sensitivefathers, inspirational mothers andsurrogate parents in UgandaMolly Warringtona

a Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,United KingdomPublished online: 19 Jun 2012.

To cite this article: Molly Warrington (2013) Challenging the status quo: the enabling role of gendersensitive fathers, inspirational mothers and surrogate parents in Uganda, Educational Review, 65:4,402-415, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2012.689274

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Challenging the status quo: the enabling role of gender sensitivefathers, inspirational mothers and surrogate parents in Uganda

Molly Warrington*

Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Within a context where relatively few girls complete secondary education, 18women were interviewed in Uganda with the objective of ascertaining how theywere able to overcome the challenges they encountered to become well-qualifiedand successful career-women. An important finding from this research was thatalthough parental involvement in Uganda is a much less formal process thanthat reported in literature from the Global North, it is nevertheless cruciallyimportant, with parents and other key figures enabling, supporting and encour-aging the young women’s education, and acting as role models. The paper high-lights, however, the gendered nature of such involvement, with some fathershaving the advantages of authority, education, money and time to enable themto stand apart from their communities in supporting their daughters’ education.In contrast, mothers frequently struggled through lack of resources, yet theirunstinting hard work and persistence offered inspiration and role modelling of adifferent kind. Interviewees growing up without one or both biological parentsmeanwhile relied on a network of people who in effect became surrogate par-ents, in various ways assisting them to complete their schooling.

Keywords: parental involvement; gender relations; Uganda; school enrolment;fostering

Introduction

Parental involvement “has become one of the centrepieces of educational dialogueamong educators, parents and political leaders” (Jeynes 2011, 73). It has been thesubject of extensive international research and hundreds of publications by research-ers, and more latterly the focus of attention of policy makers, as parental involve-ment has taken centre stage. Such has been the interest that the role of parents isnow acknowledged by governments in a number of countries as one of the path-ways to improving educational outcomes, with specific strategies set out, for exam-ple, in the United States, England and New Zealand (Hornby 2011). The situationis very different in Uganda, however, where the Ministry of Education and Sportsis currently more concerned with raising the quality of its education, improvinggender equality and developing service delivery, than in setting out policies onparental involvement. Yet, as I will show, parental involvement in Uganda, thoughnot involving the more formal practices set out in the various guidance literaturethat has spawned in recent years in countries of the Global North, has been a cru-cial factor in accounting for some women’s educational success.

*Email: mjw29@cam.ac.uk

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Uganda is a country where gender politics have been high profile, wherewomen’s movements have been strong (Tripp 2000) and where an affirmativeaction programme was incorporated into the political structure by the NationalResistance Movement which took power under Museveni in 1986 (Goetz 2002).Gender mainstreaming at university level has been practised for several years(Kwesiga and Ssendiwala 2006). Yet patriarchal relations ensure that men continueto dominate in the political and economic spheres, with Pankhurst (2002, 125)asserting that Uganda’s gender relations remain “highly unequal by any standardmeasure”. Whilst the net enrolment ratio in primary education is close to parity(1.03 in favour of girls, in 2009), the net enrolment ratio in secondary educationshows a gender parity index of only 0.84 (United Nations Educational, Scientificand Cultural Organization [UNESCO] 2011). Females become fewer in number ateach stage of the education system, with women remaining in the minority as stu-dents and staff in universities, especially as academics and managers (MugishaBaine 2010). Thus while there have undoubtedly been some positive changes dur-ing the recent historical period, it is still generally the case that “men have a clearadvantage over women in access to and control over resources, while cultural prac-tices also bestow men with more power than women in different aspects” (Kasente2003, 2).

Given the disadvantages still faced by Ugandan women and girls today,research was undertaken in Uganda, interviewing women who had become suc-cessful in their careers. All had completed secondary school, proceeded to highereducation and were currently engaged in a range of professional and managerialoccupations, and the purpose of the interviews was to establish the factors contrib-uting to that success. Among the findings of this research were that intrinsic fac-tors related to the individual, such as self-determination, motivation and self-belief,were crucial in sustaining a commitment to education despite many setbacks andchallenges along the way. Some girls also benefited from inspirational teaching. Amajor extrinsic factor contributing to the women’s success, however, was the roleof key figures in their lives, notably their biological parents, but, in the absence ofone or more parents, a network of other people who in effect took on the role ofsurrogate parents. Their material, practical and emotional inputs were of criticalsignificance in determining the women’s educational and therefore future life path-ways.

This paper therefore focuses on the involvement of parents and other key figuresin contributing to the women’s success in relation to primary- and secondary-leveleducation. It offers a qualitative dimension to the more usual quantitative approachesto understanding various facets of parental involvement, focusing on a country wheresuch studies are rarely undertaken. Thus the paper complements and adds depth toexisting work, enabling greater understanding of the gendered nature of parentalinvolvement in schooling in Uganda, and going beyond a narrow focus on biologicalparents in acknowledging the role of the extended family and wider networks of sup-port. Firstly, in order to provide some theoretical underpinnings, I discuss literaturerelating to parental involvement from both North and South, drawing out some keypoints of relevance to the empirical research. I then briefly outline the context of thestudy and its methodology before discussing the findings as they related to fathers,mothers and other key figures. My argument is that as far as these women wereconcerned, the involvement of at least one biological or surrogate parent was criticalto their success.

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Facets of parental involvement: from North to South

As Smith et al. (2011) argue, decades of research point to numerous benefits ofparental involvement in education, not only for students, but for parents, schoolsand the wider community. These authors cite a breadth of research showing positiveand significant effects of parental involvement on academic and behavioural out-comes, with, for example, better grades, attendance, attitudes, expectations, home-work completion, test results, lower drop-out rates and higher levels of social skills.It is not the purpose of this paper to review the breadth of that literature on themulti-faceted nature, characteristics and impacts of parental involvement, since up-to-date reviews already exist (see, for example, Hornby 2011; Jeynes 2011; Smithet al. 2011). It is worth pointing out, however, that the field is dominated byresearch from the Global North, and, beyond the broad acknowledgement of thelink between achievement and some kind of parental involvement in school, mostlyspeaks very little to the quite different contexts existing within Sub-Saharan Africa.For the women who took part in the research reported in this paper, for example,formal relationships between home and school did not exist, parents could notspend time listening to children read because homes contained no books and paren-tal illiteracy was common.

However, although heavily based on the context of the United States, Jeynes’s(2011) recent meta-analyses, bringing together a large number of research studiesseeking to quantify the influence of parental involvement on academic outcomes,are particularly helpful in enabling a link from North to South. Firstly, and unsur-prisingly, Jeynes confirms the positive association between parental involvementand higher student outcomes: even when the data were disaggregated, the relation-ship between parental support and educational outcomes held across different gen-ders, ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds and situations. Secondly, his meta-analyseslead him to make the interesting claim that, “one definitive pattern that emerges isthat some of the most potent facets of parental involvement are some of the moresubtle aspects of family support” such as parental style and expectations (Jeynes2011, 53–4). Both these findings have relevance within the Global South becausethey show the importance of general encouragement and support from parents,regardless of background or location.

Research exploring the links between parental involvement and children’seducational attainment within the Global South, however, naturally reflects theirvery different contexts, with Suziki (2002, 243), for example, noting the empha-sis given to community participation in the South, rather than parental participa-tion. A fundamental aspect of parents’ participation highlighted by Suziki, oftenexplicitly understood by parents, teachers and local leaders, concerns the decisionto enrol children in school and subsequently to support the school through con-tributions in either cash or kind. Since the grant given to each school is deter-mined by the numbers of children enrolled, any decision not to send children tothe local school, or to withdraw them subsequently, reduces the resources avail-able, and hence impacts upon the rest of the community. Suziki (2002) discussesthis aspect of parental participation in relation to parents’ accountability withrespect to the school. I am concerned here with accountability to children, ratherthan schools; nevertheless questions of enrolment and retention are very pertinentones, and a key aspect of this paper, as in much of the literature on educationin Uganda.

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In their study of the role of parents, Lloyd and Blanc (1996) therefore focus notjust on analysing the familial determinants of children’s attainment, but those fac-tors that predict actual enrolment and continuation in school. Using data from sevencountries, they describe parents as gatekeepers to the educational resources providedby the state, deciding whether children enrol, and how long they remain in schoolin relation to the perceived economic costs and benefits. Their paper also highlightsanother major difference between the Northern contexts within which most of thestudies of parental involvement in education are set and those of Sub-SaharanAfrica. This is the difference between the Western model of the nuclear family andthe more extended kin networks that structure family life in many African environ-ments, where parenting is a shared responsibility and child fostering is common.Isiugo-Abanihe (1985, 53) defines child fostering as the “allocation or transfer ofchildren from biological or natural homes to other homes where they are raised andcared for by foster parents.” As she points out, where fostering is prevalent, thematerial home is but one of several possible homes for a child, and a network ofkin may be more crucial to a child’s present and future experience and achievementthan a child’s natural parents. Isiugo-Abanihe distinguishes, however, between “kin-ship fostering” (where a child is sent to live with the relations of either parent, orexchanged among kinspeople because of the need to reallocate resources within theextended family), and “crisis fostering” (resulting from the dissolution of the familythrough divorce, separation or death, or children born out of wedlock). It is the sec-ond form of fostering that is particularly relevant in this paper, where, as will beshown, the loss of one or both parents was sometimes one of the most difficultchallenges to be surmounted.

High death rates from HIV/AIDS and other diseases lead to large numbers ofchildren growing up as double or single orphans across Sub-Saharan Africa. This,coupled with parental absence or death as a result of political disruption and war,means that crisis fostering is commonplace. Consequently, a growing body ofresearch explores the effects of orphanhood and fostering on children’s well-beingand schooling, across various countries of the Global South. These studies exploredifferences in enrolment rates between orphans and non-orphans and the extent towhich enrolment is affected by poverty (Ainsworth and Filmer 2006), as well as thequality of household relationships. Case, Paxson, and Ableidinger (2004), for exam-ple, found that the more distant the relative or caregiver, the less likely the childwould go to school. Research is also beginning to highlight the importance of aconsideration of gender in these fostering circumstances, with some evidence ofgirls’ attendance (Ainsworth, Beegle, and Godlike 2005), completion (Nyamukapaand Gregson 2005) and schooling outcomes (Beegle et al. 2010) worsening follow-ing the death of their mother. The negative impacts following a father’s death wereless, possibly reflecting gender differences in care. Lloyd and Blanc (1996) suggest,for example, that both girls and boys in female-headed households showed invari-ably better school outcomes than children living in male-headed households withsimilar resources. Like Lloyd and Blanc, Chudgar (2011, 559) attributes this to theincreased bargaining power for women-headed households, arguing that “whenwomen have greater decision-making power in the household, they make certaindecisions that might not be made in a household led by a man.” Nyamukapa andGregson (2005) also argue that increases in autonomy and the contribution ofwomen underpin high primary school completion rates enjoyed by paternal anddouble orphans living in female-headed households. Although often poorer and less

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educated than males in similar positions, female heads “are likely to be less con-strained by patriarchal authority at the domestic level, and may experience greaterself-esteem, more personal freedom, more flexibility to take on paid work, enhancedcontrol over finances and a reduction or absence of physical and/or emotionalabuse” (BRIDGE 2001, 3).

This survey of the literature has highlighted two issues of particular relevance.Firstly it shows that parental involvement, even in the form of general encourage-ment and support and not necessarily involving formal relationships between homeand school, has a positive impact on educational outcomes. In the Sub-SaharanAfrican context, such involvement takes on a crucial role of enabling children toenrol and then complete their schooling. Secondly, literature from the Global Southshows that parenting is not necessarily the prerogative of a child’s biological par-ents, but of a wider network of extended family and sometimes community, and so“parental involvement” takes on a wider meaning here. A growing body of researchshows, furthermore, the relevance of gender and the benefits of care within afemale-headed household (though recognizing that such benefits may sometimes beoffset by poverty).

Research study and context

The women taking part in this study were identified through collaborativepartnerships established with the Uganda Forum of African Women Educationalists,Makerere University and The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-Ugandaas part of a much larger research project into girls’ retention in school. A semi-structured interview guide was developed during a workshop involving the wholeproject team, which was then piloted and refined at the beginning of the Ugandafieldwork. Eighteen women participated in individual in-depth interviews lastingbetween one and two hours, with discussion based on their family, household andcultural context, educational history and successes with respect to education andcareer. The interviews also explored the challenges the women faced as childrenand later as adults, specifically with respect to gender, and the factors they feltinfluenced and contributed to their success.

The interviews were fully transcribed and coded using NVivo software, and acombination of deductive and inductive approaches enabled themes to be identifiedin relation both to the questions asked and to the literature, and as well as thosearising from the women themselves. A long (10,000-word) report was then com-piled and circulated to the research participants for comment, in a process ofrespondent validation. Interviews were also undertaken with a group of 20 womenin Kenya; these yielded similar findings, and thus lent support to the outcomes fromthe Ugandan research. In the discussion that follows, all women have been givenpseudonyms in order to protect confidentiality.

Whilst the women spanned an age range of around 40 years old, most grew upduring the period of rapid social, political and economic transformation followingUganda’s independence from Britain in 1962. They came from different parts ofUganda, and although some were from relatively affluent, privileged homes, otherscame from poor socio-economic backgrounds, and most grew up in remote ruralareas without electricity, running water or modern sanitation. However, whilst therewere differences in their ethnic, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, allshared the experience of significant challenges in their lives against which they had

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to struggle in order to complete their education. Some challenges were economic innature, some cultural and some personal, with most women having to surmount awhole set of problems through childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

All the women grew up in communities where education for girls was not val-ued, or taken as seriously as boys’ education (Subrahmanian 2005). A woman’splace was seen as in the home, with marriage as a sign of success, and so the tran-sition of these girls to secondary school was seen as something of an aberrationwithin their communities and often even within their schools, where few other girlsattended. Educational opportunities for those women growing up in the 1970s and1980s were limited. In fact, Heyneman (1983, 410) refers to a situation of “peda-gogical stalemate” in Uganda between 1970 and 1981, with no way to improve the“obviously inadequate educational system without an improvement in availableclassroom resources.” The quality of the education in village schools was thereforeoften poor, and although their subsequent academic achievements demonstratedtheir ability, the women often under-performed in terms of school achievement,missing the grades required to study at university in their final secondary schoolexaminations. Hence some went on to study for a diploma, usually in teaching, fol-lowing this with a degree as a mature student some years later.

“Parental” involvement in practice: different models of encouragement andsupport

“Definitely it is my father”

When asked about the key figures in their lives 11 of the women first cited theirfathers, with several talking about the strong relationships they had with theirfathers, who were keenly protective of their welfare, gave their daughters time andattention, listened, took an interest, gave advice and encouraged them in their edu-cation. As Magarita said, “from the very beginning he inculcated in us the spirit ofstudying.” Patricia became pregnant at an early age; yet in spite of community hos-tility, “my father gave me all the support he could”, and insisted on her beingallowed to return to school, an extremely unusual outcome at the time. Threewomen described their fathers as “gender-sensitive”, treating their daughters thesame as their sons, sending them to school and ensuring their material needs weremet.

What stood out, however, was the way in which these fathers built up theirdaughters’ self-confidence, with several talking of how their fathers believed inthem and were proud of their achievements, desperately wanting them to succeed intheir education. Lydia, for example, said, “I think I owe what I am today to my latefather. Right from the very start he believed in me … I’ve faced a few challengesbut I have always believed in myself, thanks to my father.” Angela’s story is partic-ularly interesting because her father initially refused to allow her to attend school,so her education began with her listening outside the classroom window, makingnotes on banana leaves. In time the teacher, realizing Angela’s potential, persuadedher father to allow her to attend school properly, and from then on he was herstrongest supporter, facilitating her progress and encouraging her in every possibleway, despite taunts from other villagers. This is a good example of Lloyd andBlanc’s (1996) argument about parents as gatekeepers who decide whether childrenenrol in school or not. Some fathers were seen as role models to be admired andemulated. Eve, for example, saw how everyone in the community respected her

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father, a teacher, and sought his views: “so I told him I would like to be like you,and I kept on with that kind of ambition in me, that I really wanted to be a tea-cher.” Brenda’s father died when she was four, “but I could tell from the commu-nity that he was so ambitious and inspiring and hardworking, so deep down I felt Ineeded to carry on his legacy.”

These findings resonate with Datta’s (2007) arguments about fatherhood embrac-ing a broader range of parenting functions than the “deficit” model commonlydepicted in opposition to, or in conflict with, motherhood, with fathers portrayed asdisciplinarians if present, or irresponsible if absent. It reflects, too, Chopra’s (2001,447) discussion, as she talks of how, “emerging from its feminist roots, the mother-hood discourse has been generative of its crucial Other: the Phallocentric Patriarchor the Absent Father.” The consequent “muting” of fathers has, she argues, eclipsedany alternative versions of fathering and the care provided by them.

However, unlike the practices of the Trobriand islanders, re-examined by Chopra(2001), the model of fatherhood presented above did not reflect a common approachwithin these rural Ugandan communities where little value was placed on femaleeducation, and most girls were not enrolled in school or dropped out after a fewyears. Indeed, not all fathers were involved in their daughter’s education. Maureen’sfather, for example, despite being a teacher, did not believe in education for girls,and though he did not prevent Maureen from attending school, gave her no help orsupport, leaving her to beg from neighbours for money for books, pens and schoolfees. Those fathers who were supportive of girls’ education stood out from othersaround them: as Emily explained, “my father was a unique man, because unlike theattitudes of other men in the rural area, he valued education for his girls.” Support-ive fathers were also, as several women pointed out, the butt of a great deal ofovert criticism within their communities for apparently wasting money on girls whowere perceived as destined only for marriage.

Perhaps these “unique” fathers were able to stand apart from the rest of theircommunities because they had the power to do so. With one exception, the fatherswhom women spoke positively about had a reasonable level of education and wereoften in positions of authority: they included teachers, government officials, a doc-tor, a magistrate, a clergyman, and a journalist. They were in paid employment andhad control over money, which they could choose to spend on education for theirchildren. As Emily commented, “my mother was supportive, but my father had theresources which my mother didn’t have.” Furthermore, although these fathers stoodout as being “different” in the support they gave for their daughters’ education,their encouragement and building up of self-confidence, they were still embeddedwithin a strongly patriarchal society, where gender relations within the home werenot equal, and gender roles were clearly demarcated. Thus they had more time tosit and talk with their children because the gender division of labour meant thatcooking, washing, cleaning, the fetching of water and fuel-wood and so on, wasundertaken by wives and daughters (Kasente 2003). Indeed, in polygamous house-holds, several wives and large numbers of children would be expected to be readyto meet the men’s various physical needs and wants.

These fathers, then, had the advantages of authority, education, money and time,which, for the most part, their wives lacked. It was men who had dominance overhousehold resources and who were the key decision-makers (Godfrey 2010): it wasthey who determined whether a child was educated or not, and so Angela’sfortunes, for example, changed radically once her father relented and not only

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allowed, but encouraged her to go to school. Thus the immediate response of sev-eral women that it was their father who played a crucial part in their education,reflected the advantageous position of fathers as compared with mothers. In Datta’s(2007, 98) words, fatherhood “is a gendered role which is invested with power,both in relation to motherhood and within the household.”

“She was sacrificing so much”

However, while the preceding discussion has focused on the power held by fathers,the position of mothers was very different. As David et al. (1997, 402) have argued,the “choices” women make in relation to their children’s schooling “are the prod-ucts of particular social contexts and sets of structural and moral constraints.” Mostof the mothers were not in paid employment, and so were dependent on their hus-bands to provide for theirs and their children’s material needs. As Angela put it,“my father provided us with all the things that we needed, but our mother gave usthe love.” Many of the women attributed some aspects of their success to theirmothers, who cared for their physical needs, and were generally engaged in exten-sive and intensive emotional caring to support their children’s education (O’Brien2007). Yet the picture they portrayed was invariably one of struggle. Faith, forexample, who grew up with both biological parents, became determined to have abetter life than that of her mother because: “I hated that my mother was alwayswaking up to go to the garden, whether she was sick or not. I respected her, I lovedher, but I knew she was sacrificing so much, and it was too much.” Hannah, whosefather was an alcoholic, and who lived with her cousin some distance away, talkedof how, “I would always remember how my mother was suffering back in thevillage.”

It was, however, in the instances where the father could not, or chose not to,support the family, that mothers’ involvement in education became crucial. Brenda’sfather died, leaving a young widow with six small children; Patricia’s and Dorothy’sfathers were imprisoned during the Amin regime (1971–9), with Patricia’s fathersubsequently going into exile overseas. In the same period, Gloria’s father wastaken away during the night, and she never saw him again. Christine’s father had10 wives, but “he cut off all his children”, leaving her mother to provide for herown 11 children. In all these instances, the women talked about the inspiration theygained from their mothers’ determination to provide for their families and to ensuretheir education continued. In other words, their mothers provided them with thesubtle aspects of family support highlighted by Jeynes (2011, 53) as so important.Thus for Patricia,

My mother was my biggest inspiration. She instilled in me the importance of educa-tion – with education the sky was the limit, and she would go all the way to ensurewe had education. Education was the key, and if you worked hard and believed inwhat you were doing, you are able to achieve it. So that became a strong part of ourup-bringing. It might not have been the same if my father was not taken into exile.

Christine also talked about how, although her mother never went to school,

She has been very instrumental in my education. I really attribute my success a lot tomy mother because she was strong, she encouraged us, she always talked to us. Wecould see her do all kinds of businesses to provide for us. She worked very, very,

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hard. In times of hunger she would travel to other districts outside Karamoja to lookfor food for us. It was not easy, but my mother did all she could.

Other mothers challenged the status quo. Although Magarita’s father was verysupportive of her education, she spoke of her mother as her first role model becauseshe had stood up against her husband taking a second wife and returned to her fam-ily, despite having to leave her children behind as they were deemed to be her hus-band’s “property”. Gloria’s mother, whose husband was killed, refused to be“inherited” by his brother, as tradition dictated, and challenged her late husband’sclan when they said she had no right as a woman to inherit anything; she alsorefused to take her daughters out of school and marry them off in order to get dow-ries to pay for the education of boys within the extended family. All of this resultedin the family becoming “the enemy of the clan”, a very difficult situation, given alllived in the same village.

What was evident, then, was that mothers became role models not because oftheir standing in the community, but because of their unstinting hard work andsheer persistence against all the odds, and in some instances, their willingness tochallenge traditional gendered practices. They provided real inspiration and a deter-mination from their daughters to emulate these characteristics and to succeed inschool. Their actual or de facto household headship gave the mothers some auton-omy and freedom from patriarchal authority, enabling a greater say in their daugh-ters’ education and more control over resources, as posited by authors such asChudgar (2011) and Nyamukapa, and Gregson (2005). Enabling their daughters toaccess the greater opportunities that education could provide, opportunities theythemselves lacked, may also have given them some sense of power as in somemeasure they were able to live vicariously through their daughters.

However, although freed to some extent at household (though not at commu-nity) level from the gendered moral constraints noted by David et al. (1997), thestructural constraints they experienced were significant, particularly in relation topoverty. As Christine explained, “although we were rich in education, because wewere going to school, we were a struggling family, really struggling.” Christineoften went without food, had no basic school equipment, no shoes and her onlyclothes were provided by the local church. Yet, while a great deal of research showsthat children who experience poverty are less likely to do well at school, “parentingis a key mediator of poverty and disadvantage in relation to children’s achieve-ments” (Kiernan and Mensah 2011, 328), and so strong women strove to utilizewhatever intrinsic and extrinsic resources they could find in order to enable theirchildren to attend school.

“I was taken in as a daughter”

Not all the women grew up with their natural parents, and seven were fostered forsome or most of their childhood. In five instances, their mother or both parents haddied; Hannah’s father became an alcoholic and lost his job so her mother could notsupport the children, while Phyllis never knew her father and her mother movedaway, leaving her as a baby with relatives. These seven women, together withChristine, whose polygamous father gave no support to his family, and Gloriawhose father was killed by Amin’s henchmen, all highlighted the role of other keyfigures in contributing in various ways to their completion of primary and

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secondary school. These people in one way or another took on a surrogate parentrole in the absence of one or both parents. This is an important finding, becauseneither the seven women whose home during their years of schooling was withboth biological parents (albeit in some cases in a polygamous household), nor thetwo women whose fathers were imprisoned but eventually returned to the familyhome, spoke of the influence of key figures apart from their parents influencingtheir schooling.

In one instance the fostering experience was very positive, as the sub-heading tothis section implies. Mary was unusual in not being taken in by relatives when herremaining parent died soon after she had begun secondary school. Driven to earnmoney to pay for her schooling even before her mother’s death, she had set up abusiness roasting and selling chickens, and a newspaper article about her caught theattention of a group of women who then supported her through the rest of herschooling and university: “I call R my mother, and F is like an auntie to me. Theyare very supportive and that is why I am what I am today. I stayed with R in herhouse – I was taken as a daughter.” In other instances the fostering experience wasmore problematic. After Brenda’s mother died when she was 10 (her father haddied 6 years earlier), the children were divided amongst relatives, with her and a4-year-old brother taken in by grandparents, far from her previous home: “but mygrandparents were so aged, they were so old, I actually had the responsibility tocare for them and my brother. At the same time I had to walk to school sevenkilometres away.” Thus despite Parker and Short’s (2009) positive view ofgrandparent fostering, there can clearly be costs as well as benefits.

There were also two examples of girls suffering considerable cruelty at thehands of their guardians. As Hannah explained, “life was hard: she had a hard heartand you had to be someone without an alternative to stay with her.” Similarly, forPhyllis:

When I reached Primary 6 life became very difficult, extremely difficult, because Iwas being beaten every day, because you come back from school so hungry, so weak,you want to eat, and they are telling you, “do this”, but they see you are not cooperat-ing well, and then they beat you.

Patience’s mother died when she was three, after which she lived with her grand-mother, but her father subsequently married two more wives, and started drinking.She described the difficulties of living with her second step-mother: “she was quiteyoung and would distance herself from us, and we lacked guidance. It was not easybecause there was no love being expressed.”

While Mary was fortunate in finding women who gave her constant practical,financial and emotional support after she became an orphan, the other six womenwho were fostered lacked a constant parent figure in their lives. For Gloria andChristine, meanwhile, their mothers supported them emotionally, and gave themeverything they could, but they were living in such poverty as to be unable to sup-ply all their daughters’ physical needs. In all of these cases, rather than one or twoparent figures providing the “parental involvement” necessary to support theirschooling, there was a network of individuals who at different times played oftensmall, but invariably crucial roles in helping them to stay in school. Financial sup-port, not surprisingly, came from men, from uncles, older brothers, cousins or hus-bands of older sisters, who paid school fees in the absence of a father and

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sometimes helped with necessities such as soap. When Brenda and her siblingsdropped out of school because she had no money for fees, a nun was able to enlistthe help of a German benefactor, who sent money for them to return to school.

Others took on the role of adviser. For example, Gloria talked about how hergrandmother was instrumental in her decision to stay in school, because “after din-ner we would sit on the floor and grandma would talk and talk and talk about edu-cation, about why we shouldn’t rush to marry”, providing numerous examples ofwomen who were suffering through marrying too young. Magarita too talked abouthow “I would have dropped out of school when my father died, had it not been forsome people who immediately said, ‘you’re going back’.” Meanwhile after Mau-reen’s mother died when she was eight, a “cousin brother” advised her “to lookahead in life, to be confident of success and to know what you’re aiming for.”Brenda was also the beneficiary of advice from her uncle, who, after she signed upfor a non-professional course at the end of secondary school, told her, “Look, youcan go and do this course, but it may not help you – you need a professionalcourse.” On his advice she studied as a teacher and subsequently took two degrees,ending up in a managerial position. The advice given was always therefore practicalin nature, including the advice given to Hannah by her aunt, who told her not tocomplain about the difficult situation in her cousin’s house, because “as long asthey’re not denying you food, they’re not beating you, just be patient, just endure,because if they don’t pay the fees you won’t study. It’s only when you study youget your freedom.”

Besides the financial and practical support the girls received to enable or encour-age them to continue in school, they were also able to find role models to inspirethem. For Patience, it was her uncle’s sons: “they were very hard-working and froma poor family, but they did well at school.” She and Phyllis also referred to olderpupils as role models, with Phyllis taking inspiration from an older girl who wasvery committed to her education “at a time when it was not common to find girlspassing Senior 6 and going to university.” Christine saw that her older siblings hadbeen able to complete their education despite the struggles they all faced, “so welooked at them as role models: we wanted to be successful, like them.” Thusalthough Beegle et al. (2010) argue that the well-being and development of a childis closely tied to the household in which he or she lives, it appeared to be the casethat these young women, through emulating certain older members of their peergroup, following advice and accepting practical support, were able to draw on anetwork of “surrogate parents” who fulfilled some of the roles which among otherinterviewees, were undertaken by the parents themselves.

Conclusion

As stated at the beginning of this paper, the topic of parental involvement in chil-dren’s education has generated a vast number of research publications and policydocuments. Most of the literature and the orientation of policies have focused onthe Global North, and many of the studies (within both Northern and Southern con-texts) have emanated from an educational psychology perspective, using large datasets and quantitative methods to test theories relating to various facets of parentalinvolvement. Quantitative methods are of value in identifying the relative impor-tance of specific indicators of parental involvement in their effects on educationaloutcomes, and they have provided a useful underpinning for the research reported

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here, which confirms some of the findings of large-scale studies. Statistical methods,however, cannot deal with the realities of individual people living out their lives inlocal communities, and therefore this research adds other dimensions of understand-ing through its particular spatial context and approach. Qualitative methods are notgenerally used within Ugandan research, yet the adoption of a close-focus, qualita-tive methodology to listen to and analyse women’s stories has enabled a morenuanced and deeper comprehension of how relationships within families andbetween home and school play out in practice, in a country where little attentionhas yet been paid to the role of parents in formal education, except insofar as theyare willing or able to make financial contributions.

The research discussed in this paper lends weight to Jeynes’s (2011) argumentthat the “subtle aspects” of parental involvement, often overlooked in a literaturewhich advocates formally constructed and carefully managed home-school relation-ship, can have the greatest salience in accounting for academic success. The empiri-cal findings reported here also lend weight to pleas made by Datta (2007) to revisitnotions of a deficit model of fatherhood, yet they also highlight the importance ofcontext. The interviewees’ fathers and mothers played different roles in their daugh-ters’ education; roles shaped and constrained by traditional gender relations. Yet asI have shown, traditional lines were crossed as some fathers were willing toundergo ridicule and criticism from other men for supporting girls’ education andprioritizing education over early marriage. Some mothers also stood out against tra-ditional norms which labelled them as their husbands’ property and gave them fewrights. This transcending of customary gender relations was often crucial in nurtur-ing girls’ educational aspirations in their early lives and laying the foundations oftheir future success. In other instances, it was the recognition of gender inequalitiesand the determination to envision a different future that provided girls with thesheer drive, determination and persistence to overcome all the odds in pursuit ofeducation.

Yet I also argue for a broader conception of “parents” here, since whilst it wasevident that fathers and mothers, separately or together, were instrumental in con-tributing to some women’s successes, other women reached unusually high levelsof attainment in the absence of both biological parents. These women depended on“surrogate parents” or role models within their families and wider communities forencouragement, advice and practical support. Together, the women and their naturalor surrogate parents were able to challenge the status quo: a situation where attend-ing school was not thought to be necessary or even appropriate for girls. Yet thesewomen did not just attend school but went on to complete primary, secondary andtertiary education, a relatively rare occurrence even today, with only 31% of girlscompleting primary school in 2006 (UNESCO 2011). Furthermore, every singleone, irrespective of age and experience, continues to give back to society, with allof them feeling they act in some way as role models for young women in Ugandatoday. This is the case not only within their own extended families and communi-ties, but through their employment, through voluntary organizations or as activistscampaigning and advocating on behalf of young women. Thus the women activelyengage in the kind of informal mentoring from which they themselves had bene-fited.

In many respects rural conditions in Uganda have hardly changed since ourinterviewees were children, with distinct gender roles continuing to exist, and thebarriers to girls’ education noted by Jones (2011) being in most respects the same

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as those affecting the women we interviewed. Yet in other respects Ugandan societyis changing. Its population is becoming more integrated into the world economyand more exposed to global media, and, as Evans (2010) writes, the phenomenonof sibling-headed households, emerging as a result of the AIDS epidemic, repre-sents a significant change in conventional patterns of care for orphaned children,albeit one which often reproduces conventional gender norms. Connell (2010)reminds us that “educational processes are about the development of human capaci-ties for practice, both individual and social.” This research therefore carries with ita message for policy makers: that role models and mentors play a part in those edu-cational processes and are needed more than ever. Their informal involvement inchildren’s education could, I contend, make a crucial difference to the educationaloutcomes of poor or otherwise disadvantaged children, wherever they might live.

AcknowledgementsI would like to express sincere thanks to the inspiring women who cheerfully and willinglymade time during their busy schedules to be interviewed, and to Martha Muhwezi, AliceMerab Kagoda and Emmanuel Kamuli who recruited the interviewees. I am also grateful tomy colleagues Alicia Fentiman who conducted some of the interviews and Susan Kiraguand Mike Younger who offered helpful suggestions on the first draft of this paper.Acknowledgements are also due to the Commonwealth Education Trust, whose financialsupport of the Centre for Commonwealth Education made this research possible.

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