Aspirations and self-hood: exploring the meaning of higher secondary education for girl college students in rural Bangladesh

This study focuses on girl college students in a rural area of South West Bangladesh exploring the meaning and value they give to higher secondary education. By listening to their voices, the ethnography shows that unlike their younger counterparts, who stop studying in order to get married, girls who enrol at college develop more complex and differentiated aspirations for the future. They show a strong sense of self-worth and self-esteem in articulating publicly their hopes of becoming economically independent and more in control of important life choices. The study suggests that, by prolonging in temporal terms the transition to adulthood, higher secondary education challenges girls' perception of themselves, favours the development of a different sense of self-hood. and increases their agency and capacity to negotiate their own ways of being part of their families and their society.