Gender discourses in an NGO education project: Openings for transformation toward gender equality in Bangladesh

This article seeks to illustrate how various actors participating in a non-governmental organization (NGO) education project in two Bangladeshi communities represent different framings of gender. Teachers, as critical actors in this education project, utilize multiple discourses of gender equality and when viewed in relation to community members’, parents’ and students’ ideas of gender equality, we argue their discursive practices can create spaces for transformation. The use of multiple discourses suggests that specific local adaptations of women in development (WID), gender and development (GAD), post-structural and rights and capabilities approaches may all be useful in the work toward gender justice as these approaches inform the different meanings of gender equality in the communities. We conclude that NGOs play a critical role in making micro-level changes in schools as well as have a broader impact on communities and national agendas by engaging different actors’ uses of gender equality discourses.

► We examines how actors in an NGO project in rural Bangladesh frame gender equality.
► Teachers as key actors draw on WID, GAD and rights discourses of gender equality.
► Teachers’ various discourses present opportunities for transformation of gender equality particularly in relation to parents’ and girls’ and boys’ ideas of gender and schooling.
► We argue that Fraser's theory of gender justice brings together multiple discourses so that openings for change present themselves.
► This study has implications for how NGOs engage local meanings of gender equality in relation to national and international discourses.