PRESIDENCIA DEL SENADO

In this section, I highlight how parents’ involvement in their daughters’ educational careers have influenced positively on their educational outcomes. Indeed, despite parental concerns about women going into a higher educational setting, parental support in women’s educational achievements remains a significant reason why women are entering into higher education. This also indicates the intergenerational changes in educational access occurring between the first and second generations of British South Asian migrants. In my research, fathers and mothers had similar and at times, different motivations in supporting their daughters to study at tertiary level. Both fathers and mothers viewed financial stability as a highly favourable outcome of higher education. For instance, Yasmin talks about the joint and complementary roles that mothers and fathers have played in them going to university:

‘In different ways, my parents were both there for moral support, complementary… my dad’s very good if I’m having stress attacks, like calm down and my mum will tell me to calm down but because she’s been through the process herself, she knows how to organise stuff and check my essays for me whereas my dad would drop me and so on so they both helped in different ways’ (Yasmin).

According to respondents, fathers’ primary wish was that their daughters achieved economic security in the future; higher education was mostly seen as an investment, especially for women of working-class backgrounds. Some women suggest that their fathers have been more supportive of their educational paths than their mothers. For instance, Saeema’s father

was more supportive than her mother, who would much ‘rather see us at home’. Her mother was ‘worried’ about them living away as opposed to her father who ‘got more used to the idea of us going away and being independent’:

‘Both trusted us but I think the reason they let us was because there was always that trust there, they’re always trusting us like when we say ‘we’re not doing that’ they know that we’re not...so I think they trusted us to go away and obviously we couldn’t betray that trust cause at the back of our mind, we know that our parents have trusted us so we can’t let them down in a sense’ (Saeema).

Some fathers are resisting the pressure that the community may exert on individual choices, especially when it comes to daughters’ wishes to pursue education instead of marriage. As Faiza states:

‘They all had different values and different priorities and whilst they value marriage and children and having children more than they value education...they’re quite tight-knit but also insular kind of community and everything stays within and they don’t want their children going out and especially the girls, the boys are fine but the boys they are not really bothered’ (Faiza).

Faiza’s father did not succumb to the extended family’s tendencies to prioritise marriage over education for women. Indeed, in some families, marriage is still viewed as the primary role of women. As my research shows, some fathers are breaking these barriers and are embracing other avenues, more so than mothers. Even though it was Abida’s choice to aim for higher studies, her father encouraged her:

‘My father was much more supportive than my mum…I think mothers when it comes to daughters are a bit too protective…like ‘oh they’re going to go astray, they’re going to disappear, we don’t know what they’re doing’ (Abida).

Indeed, mothers tend to feel responsible for their daughters’ behaviour and if they are away from home, it is difficult for them to maintain control over their daughters. However, most mothers remain supportive of their daughters’ educational endeavours, albeit the concern of a few who believe that girls ‘living away’ could potentially be problematic. This said, fathers are still encouraging their daughters to go into higher education.

Respondents also draw on the importance of having role models as inspiration for them to be successful in education as well as in employment. They cite older siblings, aunts and mothers as having influenced their choices. Similarly, Ahmad’s (2001) and Bagguley and Hussain’s study (2007) demonstrate the principle that women are aided and encouraged by their sisters, cousins and other family members to pursue their educational goals. In this research, women who had elder siblings at university found it easier to go into higher education as negotiating with parents was easier. Alia recalls how difficult it was for her

sister to go to university. Siblings therefore act as pioneers to set the trend and do act as role models for younger siblings:

‘There were reservations not necessarily from the immediate family but from the extended family…about girls going to university and you know, sort of them going astray…but my sister stood her ground and said she was going to go university and at the end of the day, my parents accepted that…when I came along and it was time for me to go to university, it was just a natural route…there wasn’t any of this barrier’ (Alia).

An elder sister who has been to university is hence a positive influence on younger siblings’ chances and opportunities to study. As Nazia says:

‘My older sister graduated in law...and she made it easier because she moved out but she had to fight for everything… once my younger sister moves out, it’s a matter of time, you look up to the eldest so, hopefully they see us as successful and I’ll be there to support them if they say ‘mum and dad won’t let me do this’... you think you can’t stand on your own feet but you can, you will struggle but you will do it, even though you’ll have the financial burden but then you do it for your independence’ (Nazia).

In my research, however, nine participants were the first to be going into higher education in their immediate and extended families. They view themselves as ‘pioneers’ who will set the example for the coming generation, ‘where girls won’t have to fight to go to university’. In their family, Nazia and her elder sister were the first women going ‘against tradition of women staying at home’:

‘We were the first girls ever to take education beyond 16 in our family’. No other women or cousins in the family have thought of going to university but our parents wanted us to get an education at some point but it was a bit difficult as we were the first ones’ (Nazia).

Daughters are also making informed decisions about their life options. Indeed, some women may choose to deliberately refrain from pursuing educational goals in order to settle down. As Alia suggests, a few women in her family have been to university, but the majority of her female cousins have stopped at college:

‘My female cousins just went to college and then started work straightaway…haven’t really gone down academic routes…but that’s not because there’s been barriers to go to university but because they chose not to pursue academic routes themselves…so more their choice’ (Alia).

Furthermore, Sanaa makes an interesting comparison between her female cousins in Britain and those in Pakistan, where women in her community reach up to college and do not aim for further education:

‘My female cousins in Pakistan have got degrees, they’ve studied as they’ve got money one’s a teacher and she’s got a great job but my British cousins, females are and women in the community, they all go to college, the majority I mean so till they’re 18 and then after, they probably go straight to work or they get married...can also go to work and get married’ (Sanaa).

In Sanaa’s family, going for a university degree is not a natural progression from school or college for women, whereas in Pakistan, women have progressed on the educational level by more and more women opting for higher education. However, in Britain, marriage after school is still viewed as the preferred option for girls.

I also asked participants why their mothers encourage them to go into higher education. A common reason is that mothers were never given the options themselves to chose between studies and marriage. The main expectation that their own mothers (respondents’ grandmothers) had of them was for them to get married and have children. This is reflective of Afshar’s research (1989, 1994) which showed that women delay independent and individual goals in order to care for their home and children. Looking after the home, their husbands and their children was the norm. In my research, only two mothers out of thirty were educated up to university level. One of them trained as a medical practitioner but stopped working when she had children, while the other is currently working as a researcher at The University of Leeds. Most mothers went to school up to 16 years old and are either homemakers or working part-time.

Most mothers married in their early twenties, a time when their daughters are actually enrolled into courses at university. They hence support and in some cases, fight, for their daughters to have the choice to study. In the process, mothers are redefining gender roles for their daughters, hence giving them the space to develop new gender identities. As Zainab points out, her mother ‘did everything after marriage, some courses, driving’. Participants suggest that their mothers have been active in providing them with the emotional and in some cases, even financial support. Mothers’ educational backgrounds also make a difference in terms of them thinking about the importance of higher education and the opportunities it creates in the future. Although some women maintain that their mother and father have been equally influential and supportive of their going to university, there are cases where mothers have been the distinctive role models and agents encouraging their daughters to study. Mothers intervene in cases where fathers maintain that marriage is a better option for women. As Rahila points out, her mother insisted that she was not ready for marriage but instead, encouraged her to enroll for a medical degree, even if that meant living away from home. This did not seem to be problematic for her mother, as compared to her father, who wished her to be closer to the family after having completed her secondary schooling:

‘She encouraged me a lot whereas my dad not really, he chose the easy option and he said get a job here close to home, he wasn’t disheartened but he was more disheartened that I was going to leave home and live by myself at a young age, but my mum pushed me to do medicine. If my mum hadn’t put her foot down, he would have got me married at the age of 18, my mum said ‘No, she’s going to university and she wants to be a doctor, it’s not the time for her to get married’...then my dad backed down and now they’re glad I did it’ (Rahila).

For Rahila’s father, the concern was not about education per se, but more about the consequences of going into higher education, such as living away on her own. For some mothers, however, the priority is for daughters to embrace the educational opportunities they were never given, rather than accepting potential marriage proposals.

Nevertheless, in spite of being supportive, mothers also present their daughters with contrasting options, which they are expected to choose from. Marriage, though delayed due to educational purposes, is always viewed as a viable alternative for young women who do not wish to go for further studies. For example, Yasmin was expected to make a decision between higher education and marriage:

‘Initially the reason I thought of going to university was because my mum said ‘if you don’t want to go to university, you might as well just get married’ cause what else are you gonna do? Sit at home and be bored and waste time and I thought I definitely don’t want to get married (Laugh) so I went through all the courses that they could possibly have’ (Yasmin).

Interestingly, Yasmin makes a link between higher education and marriage. In her family, there are two groups of women, those who marry and those who study; stark choices are made between the two, whereby women in her family do not seem to do both. Often, education is not seen as a priority for girls, whilst marriage is:

‘It seems to be the one that do pursue education that don’t get married and the ones that don’t go for education are the ones who have kids so like they don’t do both but for me I’m hoping I don’t end up in either like I’d like to have both really and that’s yeah, I do hope so’ (Yasmin).

Indeed, Yasmin does not want to be tied up to either career, or marriage. She would like to be able to bring the two together without having to choose:

‘There’s pockets like the girls who have pursued education have done really well...I think in our own house, there’s me, my mum and my sister we’ve all pursued education to a high level, in the rest of the family there’s kind of a divide, people who have not bothered at all because they’ve had other priorities in life or people have done a degree and not done anything with it and had children afterwards and my female cousin has been to uni, she’s done a degree and a Masters and she’s looking to be doing a PhD next and then on my dad’s side one of them did a degree and the rest didn’t, they just got married’ (Yasmin).

young women are developing new gendered identities as they redefine Muslim women’s roles and aspirations in British South Asian communities. In this section, I have underlined how women are re-defining their aspirations through their educational routes; as demonstrated, participants’ experiences of the types of schools attended, their contestations of community beliefs that girls must not go to university, and their navigations of their parents’ concerns and trust so as to gain approval/permission to go into higher education are all reflective of how respondents are dealing with the challenges they face as they consider educational options. In the following section, I look at the motivations informing participants’ choices to go into higher education as this throws light on the value respondents attribute to their educational careers, and as such, their determination to re-work gender identities within their communities.