Cambodian schoolgirls’ negotiation of discursive constraints within and beyond the school context

ABSTRACT

For adolescent schoolgirls in Cambodia, remaining in school entails negotiating social expectations of the dutiful, domestic-bound daughter and personal desires for educational attainment, independence, and empowerment. Dominant discourses of girlhood in Cambodia construct girls as weak, ignorant, and quiet, and confine girls’ possibilities to future wife, mother, and homemaker; whilst enabling discourses promote girls’ rights to education and participation in society. Drawing on empirical research using visual and textual data collection methods, we explore how 43 secondary schoolgirls from two state-run coeducational schools negotiated the discursive constraints of Cambodian girlhood. We argue that when schoolgirls challenge discourses of female submissiveness, they redefine Cambodian girlhood in ways that extend schoolgirls’ possibilities for action. We examine the complexities of schoolgirls’ subjectivities in relation to dominant discourses of ‘masculine’ strength and domestic-bound females, and deficit discourses attributed to uneducated (out-of-school) girls.

KEYWORDS:

• Cambodian girlhood
• discourse
• education
• post-structuralism
• subjectivities

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the NGO staff who provided valuable logistical support and advice during the study. In particular, we would like to thank research assistant, Theary (not her real name), for her wisdom, support, and insight.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tracy Leigh Rogers

Tracy Rogers is an academic developer in higher education at the University of Otago. Her research interests include gender inequality in education, teaching and learning communities, and peer assisted study support.

Karen Nairn

Karen Nairn (University of Otago) draws on her geography and education background to engage in interdisciplinary research with young people. Her current research is about youth-led activism in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Her earlier research was about young people who grew up during New Zealand’s economic reforms, exploring their post-high school paths in the book Children of Rogernomics: A neoliberal generation leaves school.