Exploring Socio-cultural Factors Of Educational Gender Inequality In Rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pakistan

Each year of schooling increases an individual's output by 4-7 percent(Basic Education Coalition,2004).There exist a large number of studies establishing that gender differentials exist in education in developing countries(Orazem and King,2007:United Nations,2002,2009,201 1).This study is an effort to investigate into various socio-cultural factors contributes educational gender inequality in rural areas of Khyber Pakhtukhwa.In this regard,this study is an effort to answer various questions such as why families invest more in boys' education?What is the role of poverty in under-investment in female schooling?How and why religion restrains female schooling?How parents are influenced by the societal perception with regard to female education?What is the role of job market in influencing parents to school there female children?And how much terrorism affects parental perception with regard to female education?This study has been conducted in rural areas of Peshawar,Khyber Pakhtukhwa,Pakistan.This is framed under qualitative research design.Purposive sampling technique has been adopted for selection of samples from the population of interest.The information has been collected through an interview guide in face to face conversation with the respondents.Further,two focus group discussions were organized to gain further insight to the research questions under concern.The collected information has been transcribed,narrated and linked with literary information in order to extract authentic findings.Findings of the study indicate that various socio-cultural factors contribute to educational gender inequality in rural areas of Khyber Pakhtukhwa,Pakistan.In terms of the first research question it is evident that families and parents invest more in boys schooling when compared to female schooling.For instance,parents in the study area tends to send their male children to highly paid private schools whereas they send their female children to low quality government schools;parents provide their male children with better educational facilities and needs such as transport,bag,books,pocket money while ignore their female children.Parents prefer male children schooling because of the better economic returns in future and perception that male are future of the family.Secondly,parents are unable to invest more in female education because of low income and poverty.In this context,fathers often cannot afford to provide male as well as female children with same highly paid private schooling.Therefore,they tend to educate male children and send female children for household work and to earn some money.Further,it is also evident that due to low income parents prefer to marry there female children and reduce economic burden on the family and thereby focus very much less on schooling of female children.Third,religion plays an eminent role in restraining parents to school there female children leading to educational gender inequality.Islam is an integral part of Pakhtunwali:.Islam significantly shapes,directs and molds the life of Pakhtuns,for example,Pakhtun directs there familial,cultural,economic,and political as well as educational life in light of the Islam.Findings of the current study reveal that Pakhtun follows Islam when it comes to educate female children.However,in majority of cases the true essence of Islam regarding education specifically female education has been misinterpreted by the so-called and uneducated religious preachers and leaders(e.g.Mullahs).As a result,instead of the true essence of Islam(which promotes education equally among male and female)the belief system is misinterpreted and it works as a barrier and hurdle to female education in the study area.Fourth,in traditional society like the study area people do not consider female schooling and education as a good practice.Major portion of the society prefer girls marriage and prefer female for doing household chores.As a result,parents follow the prevailing patterns in society and do not focus on female schooling leading to educational gender inequality in rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pakistan.Fifth,job market significantly influences parental perception and response towards female schooling in the study area.In this connection,it evident that parents observe and perceive that there is less demand for female in the job market as well as the fact that majority of the jobs are not fit for girls in the study area.In addition,parents also do not focus on female education because of fear of physical and sexual abuse at workplace.Sixth,terrorism affects female education in the study area as well.The evidence is not significant;however,instances are there which supports that some parents are reluctant to school their female children because of terrorist attacks.On the other hand,factors associated with terrorism such as the Taliban version of Islam significantly affects female schooling and education in the study areaThe study has been carried under the guidelines of prevailing Sociological Research Rules specifically mentioned by APA(American Psychological Association).In this regard,the report has been compiled into six chapters as devised.Chapter one is titled as "introduction" which provides the readers with a brief introduction to the study including background of the study,statement or justification of the issue to be researched,conceptual framework(definition of key terms and concepts in relevance to the study),objective and research questions to be answered,significance of the study,and organization of the thesis.Chapter two is titled as "literature review" and includes a detailed discussion over the issue.Chapter three is titled as "theories related to gender inequality"which includes nature of the theories such as structural fuctionalist,social conflict theories and symbolic interaction,s approach towards the issue of gender and gender inequality.chapter is titled as"research methodlogy:methods and tools of data collections.It comprises of the sampling procedures to select samples,to collect information from the respondents and methods of analysis.Chapter five is titled as "data analysis",and includes the meaningful presentation of the collected information e.g.socio-demographic information of respondents and the presentation of information collected through in-depth interviews.Chapter five six titled as "conclusion and suggestions" which concludes the study and provides suggestions to reduce the intensity of the problem.Also it contains the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.