“I Want to Help Girls Like Me”: An Exploration of the Educational Aspirations of Teenage Girls in Kolkata Slums

Oct 15, 2026

Qualitative research explores the educational aspirations of urban poor adolescent girls in Kolkata slums through participatory visual methods and interviews. The sample includes girls enrolled in a religious, philanthropic primary school in Kolkata. Drawings and interview data show ambitions to become future providers and breadwinners, shaped by socially accepted gender roles within India’s male-dominated context. The study argues that longitudinal work on first-generation slum girls can deepen understanding of educational pathways and social mobility.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Urban poverty and education inequalities

Informal settlements: notified vs non-notified slums

Barriers to schooling and gendered norms

“I Want to Help Girls Like Me”: An Exploration of the Educational Aspirations of Teenage Girls in Kolkata Slums Rebecca Ipe University of Oxford This qualitative study used participatory visual research in order to develop an understanding of the educational experiences of urban poor adolescent girls in Kolkata and to elicit their capabilities. The sample comprised urban poor girls who were undergoing formal education at a religious, philanthropic primary school in Kolkata. Findings from the drawings and interviews reveal the girls’ambitions tobe future providers and breadwinners for their families, roles socially accepted asthe preserve of men in India’s male-dominated society. Ultimately, longitudinal research on these ‘first-generation’ girls may shed more insight into understanding educational pathways of girls from urban slums and provide more comprehensive understandings of social mobility. Introduction Educated girls are still a rarity amongst the urban poor populations where deprivation and inequality are starkly evident and education is a luxury in the struggle for survival (UN-Habitat, 2003, Ernst et al., 2013). This paper defines the urban poor as those living in informal settlements (also known as slums) . Slums or informal settlements are characterised by makeshift housing erected on municipal land, a lack of basic services such as piped water and electricity, and grinding poverty. Informal settlements are an inescapable feature of major urban cities in low and middle income (LMIC) countries, and are expected to increase in population in the next few decades: “It is projected that in the next 30 years, the global number of slum dwellers will increase to about 2 billion”(UN Habitat, 2003, p. xxvi) . The word ‘slum’ carries negative connotations which falls short of the complexities of the neighbourhoods described. From a critical reading of the texts generated on the subject of slums two attitudes emerge: righteous horror, evoked by UN reports which mercilessly detail the worst conditions of slums or the romantic “flower in the filth” phenomenon which popular media such as Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2009) or Born into Brothels (Boo, 2012) typify. Certain uses and arrangements of words and actions that we may call cultural may be especially strategic sites for the production of consensus (Appadurai, 2004) . This paper, therefore, takes a deliberate stance in using the phrase ‘urban poor’ and relying on ‘informal settlements’ to describe these neighbourhoods. Despite the ubiquity of informal settlements, there are gaps in the academic literature concerning education provision and equitable outcomes for urban poor children (Lewis, 2008). Many out-of-school children live in informal settlements, which are often bypassed in national surveys, indicating that the number of out-of-school children may be higher than estimated (Carr-Hill, 2012) . In India, informal settlements are further divided into‘notified’ (officially recognised) and ‘non-notified slums’. ‘Notified slums’may typically have better quality housing and municipal services while ‘non-notified slums’ are considered illegal and in constant danger of eviction. Studies conducted in informal settlements paint an almost uniform picture of hardship and deprivation (Subbaraman, 2014; Ernst et al., 2013; Marx et al., 2014) . Moreover, ‘notified slums’ often battle similar adverse living conditions as ‘non-notified slums’ (Auerbach, 2013) . Ethnographic and empirical research has revealed families can live in informal settlements for decades (Thorbek, 1994; Tsujita, 2013) . This not only disrupts the assumption that their residency is temporary, but it also indicates bleak prospects for upward social mobility. Research shows that the urban poor desire their residencies in the informal settlement to be temporary and perceive that education for their children is the only way to avoid a life of permanent poverty (Cameron, 2010; Tsujita, 2013). However,

FAQs

What research method is used to understand the girls’ educational experiences?

The study uses participatory visual research combined with interviews, using drawings and conversations to elicit educational experiences and capabilities.

Who were the participants in the study?

Participants were urban poor girls who were currently undergoing formal education at a religious, philanthropic primary school in Kolkata.

What do the drawings and interviews suggest about the girls’ ambitions?

The findings indicate that the girls aspire to become future providers and breadwinners for their families, reflecting accepted gender roles in a male-dominated society.

Oct 15, 2026

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