Urban inequality, social exclusion and schooling in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper asks whether education is a viable route to better livelihoods and social inclusion for children living in poor urban areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It uses qualitative interviews with 36 students aged 11–16, living in slum and middle-class areas, and also draws on data from a larger, mixed-methods study to provide context. Many children from slums are excluded altogether from education, while others are incorporated into the system but on unfavourable terms. The paper identifies three principal ways in which this adverse incorporation can happen: through differential access to different types and quality of school; through obstacles that prevent children from poorer households from progressing through the system and reaching higher levels; and through subordinate power relations in the school, embodied in systems of assessment, labelling of students and discipline. These are likely to limit the potential for education to be a socially transformative institution.

Keywords:

• Education
• urban poverty
• slums
• inequality
• Bangladesh
• South Asia

Acknowledgements

This paper was written as part of a research fellowship at UNICEF’s Office of Research at Innocenti during March-November 2012. I am extremely grateful to Hafsa Rahman who worked as research assistant for this project. I am also very grateful to the UNICEF Bangladesh office, and especially Nabendra Dahal, Shamima Siddiky, Shamima Pervin and Nuzhat Khalil Haque for advice and practical help. I am also grateful to Karen Moore, Mahruf Shohel, Benjamin Zeitlyn, and Christy Sommers, Altaf Hossain, and Mohammad Abul Kalum for valuable discussion and advice; to Chris de Neubourg and other colleagues at Innocenti for support and discussion; and to Ian MacAuslan and other colleagues at Oxford Policy Management for suggestions in revising the paper. Any errors and omissions are my own.

Notes

1. These domains were: school environment, teacher presence, teaching methods, classroom management, teacher-student relationships, student-student relationships, student emotional reactions to interaction in the class, curriculum, assessment, student motivation, homework and private tuition. See Cameron (2012) for further description and the full codings.

2. The seven years is further divided into three stages: lower-secondary (grades 5–8), secondary (grades 9–10) and higher-secondary (grades 11–12). Higher secondary is sometimes offered in separate establishments known as intermediate colleges.

3. Official primary net enrolment rates are, at the time of writing, only available for 1970–1990 (see UIS n.d.; UNESCO 2012).

4. However, the MICS survey only asks about work for someone who is not a member of the same household, and so excludes household chores or work for a parent’s business, and the measure also excludes children who combine school and work.

5. All names have been changed.

6. SIDA Bangladesh (2010) similarly argues that children drop out of school because they do not like it or are failing, rather than for economic reasons.