Childrens Agency in the Face of National, Community, and Family Determinants of School Enrollment

• In Event: Migrants, Inclusion and Student Agency

Proposal

Empirical research on factors which influence children’s educational participation have demonstrated ways in which a variety of national-level, community- level, and family-level variables influence children’s school enrollment. This is due in large part to a search for generalizable large-scale solutions to children’s school absence. However, my qualitative work in Tajikistan finds that children often have the ability to advocate for themselves in order to continue schooling. To demonstrate this, I utilize fieldwork data collected from 2006-2013 in Tajikistan. I find that indeed there are household-, community-, and national-level factors that interact in particular ways to affect educational outcomes. However, I also find variance in the data as parents account for individual children’s aptitude and preferences for schooling which demonstrate the role individual children play in advocating for their own schooling.

Author

• christopher whitsel, North Dakota State University