Enhancing adolescent Mayan girls’ education through peer support

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to evaluate how peer support can contribute to the completion of secondary school for girls who have interrupted their education, so that they can achieve higher levels of schooling through a supportive community network in villages of the Yucatan peninsula in southeast Mexico. For this purpose, qualitative social science research methodology was used with a participatory approach. The findings demonstrated that beyond existing school reintegration programs, it is the strength of purpose in the girls’ minds and the influence of the people that surround them that determines the degree of success or failure. The originality of this research is to be found in the collection of primary information from groups of adolescents regarding aspects that encourage them to reach, or stop them from reaching, higher levels of education, while compiling the intervention of key actors in the communities in favor of girls’ education in the state of Yucatan.

KEYWORDS:

• Secondary education
• girls
• motherhood
• leadership
• inclusive education

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Echidna Giving, delivering the promise of girls’ education.

The authors would like to recognize the work carried out by Ramón Francisco Osorio Centeno, who was the Maya to Spanish translator during the interviews carried out as part of this research.

We would like also to thank the recommendations of the reviewers who improve significantly the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Research conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) in Mexico established that among the population from 15 to 17 years old, the reasons for nonattendance at secondary school were dislike for academic activities (41.9%), lack of economic resources (26%), personal or academic problems (21.9%) and early marriage, teenage pregnancy and child-bearing (10.3%). Within "personal or academic problems" are included personal or academic problems at school due to illness and/or disability, the achievement of educational goals, the person had never been to school, there was no school or there was no place available to attend school (INEGI 2016).

2 $50 USD dlls/$1000 pesos for each one of the mentor girls paid on a monthly basis.

3 Rice, beans, milk, cookies, salt, lentils, oats, and cornflakes, among other food products.

4 Ticopó, Holactún, Seyé, Tahmek, San José Tzal, Buctzotz, Maxcanú, Conkal.

5 In Mexico 74.96% of the population is Catholic (INEGI 2010).

6 In Mexico, basic education includes 6 years of primary education and 3 years of secondary education in the National Educational System.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Echidna Giving, delivering the promise of girls’ education.

Notes on contributors

María Cristina Osorio Vázquez

María Cristina Osorio Vázquez (1979) holds a degree in International Relations, a Master’s in Economics and Public Administration from the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, and a Ph.D. in Innovation and Governance for Sustainable Development from the University of Twente, the Netherlands. She has extensive experience as project leader of externally funded projects with the aim of filling an important gap in girls’ education research by addressing the challenges and barriers to girls’ education in Mexico, particularly for Mayan girls living in remote areas of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Hans Th.A. Bressers

Hans Th.A. Bressers (1953) is professor of Policy Studies and Environmental Policy at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and founder of the CSTM, the Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability, one of the departments of the Faculty of Behavioral, Management and Social sciences. At the university level, he is the Chair of the Twente Water Centre, which brings together over 150 water management researchers from all technical, natural science and policy oriented faculties of the University of Twente. In over three hundred articles, chapters, and books and a similar number of reports, conference papers and presentations (both in Dutch and in English) he has published on policy evaluation, instruments, networks, and implementation, mostly applied to environmental and sustainability-oriented policies. He has been researcher and project leader on numerous externally funded projects, including several projects funded by EU research frameworks, the Dutch National Science Foundation, national priority research programmes, Dutch ministries, and other organizations.