Troubling the Education = Employment = Empowerment Narrative: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Women in Uganda

This paper reports on stage four of a longitudinal study (2004) with women in Uganda, exploring the long-term relationship between post-primary education and empowerment. 13 of the 15 participants from the original study participated in this Feminist Participatory Action Research project and shared their understandings of how they understood the intersections of education and employment to be empowering, disempowering, and what stood in the way of their economic empowerment. Methods included semi-structured questionnaires and interviews, a two-day workshop, and a focus group discussion. A triangulation design (Cresswell 2008) and constructivist grounded theory approach were used for data analysis. Findings indicate the scope of economic empowerment was severely constrained by historic and extant economic, social, and cultural factors that continue to discriminate against and disempower girls and women. Historic and extant global and national systems and practises that are rooted in, and perpetuate gender-based inequalities, disempowerment, and exploitation need to undergo transformative change to provide women with authentic opportunities and freedom to achieve real empowerment (Cornwall & Rivas, 2015).