Research Catalog

Title

Schooling as uncertainty : an ethnographic memoir in comparative education / Frances Vavrus.

Author

Vavrus, Frances Katherine

Publication

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 279 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

"In today's uncertain world, few beliefs remain as firmly entrenched as the optimistic view that more schooling will lead to a better life. Though this may be true in the aggregate, how do we explain the circumstances when schooling fails to produce certainty or even does us harm? Schooling as Uncertainty addresses this question by combining ethnography and memoir as it guides readers on a 30-year journey through fieldwork and familyhood in Tanzania and academic life in the USA. Using reflexive, longitudinal ethnographic research, the book examines how African youth, particularly young women, employ schooling in an attempt to counter the uncertainties of marriage, child rearing, employment, and HIV/AIDS. Adopting a narrative approach, Vavrus tells the story of how her life became entangled with a community on Mount Kilimanjaro and how she and they sought greater security through schooling and, to varying degrees, succeeded."

Subject

• Vavrus, Frances Katherine
• Education > Social aspects > Tanzania
• Girls > Education > Social aspects > Tanzania
• Educational mobility > Tanzania
• Education > Social aspects
• Educational mobility
• Tanzania

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Glossary -- Map of Tanzania and the Kilimanjaro Region -- Introduction -- Part I Shaky Beginnings -- 1 Marital Misgivings -- 2 Spoons, Strikes, and Schooling -- Part II Precarious Parenthood -- 3 A Difficult Delivery -- 4 Preventable Deaths -- Part III Fallible Expertise -- 5 Questioning Dr. Spock -- 6 Questioning Corporal Punishment -- Interlude: From Doctoral Student to Assistant Professor -- Part IV AIDS and the Ordinariness of Crisis -- 7 Schooling, Sponsorship, and Social Contingency
• 8 The Burden of Care: Grandparents and the AIDS Crisis -- Part V Policy Arbitrariness -- 9 Tripping on the Tenure Track -- 10 Aspirational Equality and the Precarity of Policy -- Part VI The Social Life of Uncertainty -- 11 Speed Bumps on Lema Road -- 12 Gendered Contingencies -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Appendix A: Summary of Research and Teaching Activities in Tanzania -- Appendix B: Overview of the Tanzanian Education System -- References -- Index

Call Number

Sc E 21-1025

ISBN

• 1350164496
• 9781350164499
• 9781350164482
• 1350164488

OCLC

1153476960

Author

Vavrus, Frances Katherine, author.

Title

Schooling as uncertainty : an ethnographic memoir in comparative education / Frances Vavrus.

Publisher

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

Sc E 21-1025