Cambodian schoolgirls’ negotiation of discursive constraints within and beyond the school context

Abstract

For adolescent schoolgirls in Cambodia, remaining in school entails negotiating social expectations of the dutiful, domestic-bound daughter and personal desires for educational attainment, independence, and empowerment. Dominant discourses of girlhood in Cambodia construct girls as weak, ignorant, and quiet, and confine girls’ possibilities to future wife, mother, and homemaker; whilst enabling discourses promote girls’ rights to education and participation in society. Drawing on empirical research using visual and textual data collection methods, we explore how 43 secondary schoolgirls from two state-run coeducational schools negotiated the discursive constraints of Cambodian girlhood. We argue that when schoolgirls challenge discourses of female submissiveness, they redefine Cambodian girlhood in ways that extend schoolgirls’ possibilities for action. We examine the complexities of schoolgirls’ subjectivities in relation to dominant discourses of ‘masculine’ strength and domestic-bound females, and deficit discourses attributed to uneducated (out-of-school) girls.