An Examination of Gender Violence in Two Primary Schools in Uganda and Approaches for Sustainable Prevention Ellen Turner

Doing and undoing gender violence in schools: An examination of gender violence in two primary schools in Uganda and approaches for sustainable prevention Ellen Turner A thesis submitted to the UCL Institute of Education for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2020 2 Author’s declaration I, Ellen Turner, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. This thesis may be made available to the general public for borrowing, photocopying, or consultation without the prior consent of the author. The copyright of the thesis rests with the author. Quotation from the thesis is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. The PhD was funded by a Bloomsbury studentship. Word count: 99, 534 Signed: Date: 31st August 2020 3 Abstract Recent decades have seen huge expansion of research and policy frameworks into preventing violence against children, yet have also shown the persistence and intractability of this violence. While offering potential to challenge violence and inequality, schools are also spaces in which children experience significant acts of physical, emotional and sexual violence, wherein structural inequalities are learned and reinforced, and in which children construct and negotiate their gendered identities in relation to violence. School-based interventions have sought to prevent violence, however little is known about their long-term influence and sustainability. This thesis examines gender violence in two primary schools in Luwero District, Uganda, and the long-term influence of the Good School Toolkit intervention to prevent violence. It offers these findings to the broader field of sustainable approaches to violence prevention in schools. It draws on a qualitative study using ethnographic methods conducted in 2017, involving participant observation, individual interviews with pupils and teachers, participatory group discussions and a writing club with pupils. Underpinned by the view that a meaningful understanding of a school intervention to prevent violence against children is one rooted in a deep analysis of this violence, this study examines peer violence, teacher discipline violence and teacher sexual violence in two schools. It argues that these forms of violence are gendered, closely embedded within schools’ institutional structures, and highly interrelated. Drawing on the theoretical lenses of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Deborah Youdell and Raewyn Connell, this thesis offers a framework for understanding both how gender violence in schools is ‘done’, what it means for school femininities and masculinities, and how it may also be ‘undone’. This framework posits that there are multiple bodily-institutional regimes within schools and within which gender violence is deeply embedded. Interventions may have a sustainable influence on preventing violence by addressing these multiple regimes. 4 Impact statement At an immediate level, the impact of this thesis begins with the findings leading to the Ugandan NGOs Raising Voices and Child Health International designing and taking child protection action in the two schools of this research, immediately following the end of fieldwork in 2017. During data collection February–August 2017, emergent findings were shared in-person with Raising Voices staff on a monthly basis, to seek their input for interpretation and to share findings for immediate impact on the functioning of the Good School Toolkit intervention. While undertaking data analysis in 2018, I participated in a workshop held in Addis Ababa entitled ‘Children and youth facing violence in Africa’, and shared early research findings with an international audience of practitioners, policy makers and academics in the field of violence prevention. Towards the end of data analysis in 2019 and to feed into a refinement of the Good School Toolkit intervention, I shared the key insights of this study into the long-term influence of this intervention with Raising Voices staff in a virtual presentation. Making the findings of this research available, accessible and useful to both Raising Voices in their refinement and implementation of the Good School Toolkit, and for broader colleagues in the field of violence prevention interventions in schools, is a priority and guiding focus for this study. I therefore aim to also share research findings in person with the two schools of the research and with Raising Voices through a further dissemination visit to Uganda. For an academic audience, this research has potential for impact within the areas of understanding gender and gender violence against children in schools, and school interventions to prevent violence, in both public health and sociological fields and the ways in which these fields overlap and speak to each other. This thesis has been enriched by complementary insights and linkages across these fields, and I aim to draw on these linkages in the impact sought through sharing the findings. This will involve contributions to the Good Schools Study academic literature, and the broader field of violence prevention interventions research, in generating knowledge into the long-term influence of the Good School Toolkit intervention, and an article for a public health journal on child protection and research ethics. It will also involve seeking to publish empirical insights gained through the study into gender violence and its prevention in schools, researcher positionality and ethics, and theorisations of gender violence in schools, for journals in the field of educational sociology. 5 Acknowledgements My huge and heartfelt thanks go firstly to my supervisors Jenny Parkes and Karen Devries. Thank you for initiating this important study, for supporting me throughout working on it and encouraging me to take it in new directions. I am deeply grateful to you for your guidance and challenge throughout. Your insights have made this thesis richer at every stage. Thank you also for your encouragement beyond the PhD and for being a source of inspiration and role models to me in this field. Thank you to the staff at Raising Voices, in particular to Dipak Naker, Sophie Namy, Janet Nakuti, Angel Faridah, Clinton Okecha, and the Good School team. My thanks go to you for welcoming me so wholeheartedly at Raising Voices, for your dedication and passion to work in this field, and for your openness and commitment to taking on board the findings of the study. Last but certainly not least, thank you for your support in every aspect of fieldwork. Thank you to Shakira Nagasha for your partnership and insights. My gratitude also goes to Louise Knight at LSHTM, to Sophie and Dipak, and to Francis at CAI for your guidance, support and efforts in the challenging child protection aspects of the work. Thank you to Charley Nussey for your friendship and endless encouragement during the thesis, to the fellow students at EIDDN for sharing some of the way together, and to Katy, Alice and Lizzie for your friendship during fieldwork. A huge and special thanks is reserved for the pupils and staff at the schools I call Kiragala and Myufu Schools. Thank you for sharing your schools and worlds with me. Finally, thank you to Michèle Spencer, Mark Turner, Daniel Turner, Jessica Turner, Mary Spencer, Sue Dipple and Deborah Chamberlain for supporting me in so many different ways throughout the PhD. Thank you to Jessica for sharing it with me. Thank you to Camilla Stack, to Frances Edwards, Jude Finney, Milly Pease-Watkin, Rachel Stokes, Rosie Fox, Zoe Winterbotham and to Robyn. Thank you to Cranbrook for putting up with me at the end. This thesis would not have been finished without you all. 6 For S.R. and N.E. who did not have the chance to participate in this research, but whose stories are at the heart of it. 7 8 Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Situating the study ............................................................................................................................................ 12 Towards a study into gender violence and its prevention in Ugandan schools ............................................... 15 The context of Luwero District, Uganda .......................................................................................................... 16 Forefronting acts of gender violence in research ............................................................................................ 21 Methodological approach ................................................................................................................................ 24 Research aims and overview to thesis .............................................................................................................. 25 Chapter 2. Interventions to prevent gender violence in schools: Mapping the field .................................... 29 Violence prevention through policy approaches .............................................................................................. 29 Violence prevention through in-school interventions: A focus on gender ....................................................... 30 Approaches not explicitly gendered: A tendency towards peer violence and corporal punishment ........... 31 Approaches explicitly gendered: A tendency towards sexual violence against women and girls ............... 34 Implications for

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