Instrumentos Financieros con Características de Pasivo

Data for this dissertation consists of:

• 85 interviews with schoolgirls in Kono • 26 letters from schoolgirls in Kono • 20 essays written by schoolgirls in Kono • 15 interviews with family members • 12 interviews with community members

• 15 interviews with education related community members

• Field notes from five field visits lasting 3-6 weeks (Jan 2010, March 2010, January-February 2011, January-February 2012, January-February 2013) • Classroom observations

From this large data set, I focus on data from three schoolgirls. For the three schoolgirls, the data set is as follows:

Participant Interviews with participants Interviews with Family Interviews with teachers headmistress Letters Essays Aisatta 11 0 2 1 0 Isatou 6 4 2 6 1 Fantu 5 2 2 2 1

Table 4: Data Set

3.2.1.1. Site Selection

In the previous section, I explained how I came to settle on Koidu city as a research site. Three different schools were selected as initial interview sites on the basis of three criteria: a) walking distance from my lodging; b) gender segregated schools (i.e. all three schools are girls-only schools); and, c) one secular school and two religious schools (i.e. one Muslim and one Christian).

3.2.1.2. Focal Schoolgirl Selection

Participants were initially selected by their headmistresses or class prefect based on the following criteria: (a) identified as ‘self-funding’ her education; (b) had attended the school more than one year; and (c) was in 5th or 6th grade; and, (d) was between the ages of 11 and -13. Many children in Sierra Leone receive scholarships from international aid organizations, families abroad who send remittances, or other benefactors who which pay for their fees. I was interested in interviewing schoolgirls without scholarships.

In 2010, I interviewed thirty participants. In 2013, I was able to find fourteen of the initial interviewees. Of those fourteen, I focused on eleven that I had clear and easy access to, including their teachers, and their households. For this dissertation, I focus on three individual participants. I selected focal schoolgirls based on these

criteria: a) the amount and quality of interview data and b) a diverse and evocative selection of school achievement, family situations, and personalities.

3.2.1.3. Interview Protocol

I conducted multiple formal interviews with eleven schoolgirls and their households during six separate site visits to Kono. I initially interviewed all focal participants at their schools and the households at their homes. As the years passed, many of the formal interviews took place on my porch or other local quiet settings. Other informal discussions occurred while cooking, playing cards, or sitting under the mango trees. As the years of research have increased so has the comfort and depth of these interviews. Initially, the interviews were rather formal following a common question/answer format. In the household interviews, I directed questions at specific people and others were respectful and did not interrupt. The most recent household interviews in 2012 and 2013 have interruptions, jokes, and casually drift among topics. I usually interviewed teachers on the veranda of the classrooms or in empty classrooms. I interviewed headmistresses in their offices and occasionally in local eateries or my porch.

The setting- whether it be a private interview on my porch or in their office- made a difference. Topics appropriate to my porch were not necessarily appropriate for the office. I tried, as much as possible, to allow the interviewee to choose the location of the interview and to have the power to set the boundaries of the interview topics. Acknowledging that the interview relationship is never equal, I consciously chose to allow the interviewees to lead, as much as possible, the interviews. When I interviewed people in positions of power within their office, I did so without others in the room. In some cases, they turned on and off the recorder so that they had total

control of what was being recorded. Of course, the girls and others interviewed also held the recorder but did not exercise their power to turn it off.

Aside from the various location in which I conducted interviews, the interviews themselves varied in style. Differences in class and race were discussed earlier in this dissertation but additional factors entered into the different interviews. With the girls, my age made a difference and the contents of our interviews needed to be age-appropriate for them. When interviewing NGO workers, teachers, or other professional people sometimes my age made a difference and sometimes it did not. My age made a difference most clearly when interviewing older men and women in positions of power as they gained status as elders and knowledgeable insiders.

Along with setting, age, class and race differences, the range of suitable topics differed and the extent to which I felt I could express my own opinions differed as well. With Frankie, Mr. Monku, and other close friends, I could express my

acceptance of homosexuality and abortion, for example, and they openly voiced their opinions on such controversial topics. Bringing these topics to the girls would have pushed the boundaries of my relationship with them and perhaps the extent to which their families welcomed me. An incident that occurred one evening on my porch reminded me of the differences in cultural boundaries and the careful line I had to draw between outsider/insider. That evening, Mr. Monku came over to pick me up on his motorbike. I told the girls on the porch that I had to leave because we were going into the bush to drink palm wine and watch the sunset. The girls were horrified that I was going into the bush to drink. First, going into the bush is considered dangerous. Secondly, ‘good women’ do not drink at all, especially crude palm wine. Then Mr. Monku reprimanded me for letting the girls know that he drank, and more seriously

for being a bad role model for the girls. Those moments when I crossed cultural boundaries without grace, stumbling ineptly through local expectations, norms, and assumptions serve as markers for me of cultural differences that, if respected, allowed me into their worlds. My very presence in their lives was transformative, but my interviews, manners, and actions needed to be respectful of their moral and cultural boundaries, which necessitated understanding those boundaries.

I was already pushing cultural normative behaviors. I was frequently asked where my husband was, who was taking care of my children, and what my parents thought of my being so far from them. These questions served to reinforce the oddity it was for them to see a married elder woman traveling alone so far from home. In an effort to ask questions from an emic perspective, I asked questions that might seem strange in another situation. For example, I asked the girls about wearing pants—if they could wear pants, when and where they felt comfortable wearing pants, and if their mothers would ever wear pants. Asking their age mates in the USA those questions would evoke surprise, as the answers would be obvious—to me at least— and considered irrelevant. Conversely, I could not ask the Sierra Leone girls questions that might seem appropriate to their American age mates.

When it came to asking questions about expectations, I made the cultural assumption that they would marry a man and that they would have children. I ask the girls if they want to get married and they all say yes. There is no hesitation. When I ask what kind of man they want to marry, the girls seem puzzled. It appears to be the first time they have thought about marriage as a choice for them. The girls look confused until I prompt with “A tall man or a fat man?” From there we begin a

discussion of what attributes they consider important and how the decision is going to be made.

These interviewing challenges are not unique to my work. The interviewing relationship is a fragile one that requires a balance between power, comfort, and reciprocity. It is also a relationship in the best sense of co-constructing the form, space, and the respect that comes.