How does traditional male and female roles and gender identities affect the educational choices and employment ambitions of the women of Indian minority and backward communities? The role of religion, state, family, community

Suggested topic/research question:
How does traditional male and female roles and gender identities affect the educational choices and employment ambitions of the women of Indian minority and backward communities?
The role of religion, state, family, community etc.

? Women are assigned certain status within the community
? The forms of gender socialization in schools can add to female disadvantage in adult life If women lack self confidence in the public sphere and are suppressed in their educational choices and employment ambitions by traditional male and female roles.
? Women by virtue of their patriarchy in the private domain are expected to live and abide by religious norms, their fidelity to religious values and become the basis for the judgment of community identity as a whole.
? Female submissiveness and passivity that create and accept
? Self-images that are based on family stereotypes and social expectations. Particular role specific identities.
? Women are considered to be custodians of cultural identity by virtue of being less assimilated both culturally and linguistically into the wider society.
? Women of minority communities retain cultural separateness to a greater extent than men
? Legal equality granted to minority women by the constitution gets circumscribed by family laws which gives men greater rights in the area of marriage, divorce, maintenance and inheritance, all of which are legitimized in the name of community as a whole.
? Symbolic constructs and tradition intrude upon and affect women?s lives.
? It often imposes several constraints on their ability to assert their interests ignored by the community and identity.
? Important question: Why traditional laws and customs have been held on the so tenaciously in India?
? There is an exceptional resistance to change in this area despite that all other Islamic civil and community laws have been swept aside.
? The state often protects and regulates community and family thus perpetuating forms of patriarchal control over women.
? Personal law is of no help to Muslim women because it undercuts and undermines their rights.
? The substantive inequality of disadvantageous groups in contra distinction to the formal inequality underscored by unequal laws.
? Community constructions of gender roles.
? Complete absence of reform in family laws.
? Personal laws are only for discrimination.
? Women?s lack of rights in law was a crucial factor in maintaining the subordination of men.
? Muslim family laws after independence have remained unchanged.
? Most modern states in the Arab world have sought to expand women?s rights within the framework of Islamic law but such changes have not taken place in India.
? Muslim women?s attitude towards religious identity.

References:
1. ?Contextualizing gender and identity in contemporary India?. by Zoya Hassan
2. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Susan Seymour.
3. ?Schooling All Children: The Policy implications
of Mothers? Educational Decision-making?
Fibian Kavulani Lukalo and Madeleine Arnot
University of Cambridge

Guidance for graduate applicants on writing a research proposal
When writing your proposal, please consider carefully which of the academic groups your research would best fit within and state the name of this group clearly at the top of your proposal. If you have identified a potential supervisor, please state their name clearly on your application form in the appropriate space on the application form.
Your research proposal needs to give those assessing your application an impression of the strength and originality of your proposed research, and its potential to make a contribution to knowledge. It should be written in clear, jargon-free, and unexceptional prose. Grammatical mistakes and typographical errors give a very bad impression. Please make sure you cover the following:
? The topic that you propose to research: This should consist of a clear outline of the research question or questions and an analytical justification of the choice of topic on academic and educational grounds. ? The research context: relate your proposed research to other work in its field or related fields, and indicate in what ways your research will differ; you might mention monographs on the subject, as well as important theoretical models or methodological exemplars: this is a chance to show your understanding of the background against which your research will be defined ? The contribution that your work will make to the field: This is your chance to show how you have arrived at your position and recognised the need for your research, and what it is that makes it both new and important; you should indicate what areas and debates it will have an impact on, what methodological example it sets (if appropriate) – in short how it contributes to knowledge and to the practice of our subject. Give examples of the sort of evidence you might consider, and of the questions it might help you to raise. Show that you are already thinking about the area in detail and not only in outline. ? The methodology and methods to be used in your study: This section should describe the methods and methodology you propose to employ as well as a justification for the suitability of these methods in addressing your research purposes
It is vital that you show that your research is necessary. It is not enough that it happens to interest you. You should make clear that it will be of use and interest to others working in your field. You should show how your work will make a contribution to knowledge and to the practice of our subject.
It is likely that in most cases the research questions and methodology will be refined and adapted during the course of the year in consultation with the supervisor. Nevertheless, the quality of this initial presentation is a very important factor in deciding whether to offer a place to an applicant.