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Daniela Alarcon

Professor Shahrazad Encinias

CAS 115

30 November, 2023

The Roles That Hold Them: Barriers to Indigenous Girls' Education in Guatemala

Bowen, Dawn S., and Amy Leap Miller. “Education, Leadership, and Conservation:

Empowering Young Q’eqchi’ Women in Guatemala.” International Journal of

Educational Development, vol. 59, 2018, pp. 28–34. This article seeks to empower

indigenous Q'eqchi' girls in Guatemala to obtain secondary education by examining a 25

day environmental education and leadership program called Women in Agroecology

Leadership for Conservation (WALC). The program provides scholarships, intensive

agriculture training, nutrition, leadership training and more. There were several

interviews with people, mostly women, talking about their personal lives and how

education is not seen as something women should pursue. The women also mention how

this program influenced them to improve their living conditions as women in Guatemala

through education. The program helped improve participants’ self-esteem and leadership

skills. These interviews demonstrated how WALC helps fight for women's rights.

Content Engine LLC. “Guatemala Is the Fifth Country in the Region with the Highest Incidence

of Forced Marriages and Unions Involving Girls and Adolescents.” CE Noticias

Financieras, English ed., ContentEngine LLC, a Florida limited liability company, 2022.

This news article examines the issues in Guatemala surrounding underage marriage of

girls, especially indigenous girls. The article states that Guatemala is among the countries

with the highest rates of underage marriage and unions in the Americas. Some of the
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drivers making girls marry early are poverty, lack of access to education, gender

inequalities and cultural beliefs. This causes girls to drop out of school, become

economically dependent and suffer domestic violence. Also, the article calls for

government action to address this issue and provide more opportunities for girls’

education. The article uses data from NGO Plan International to demonstrate the high

levels of underage marriage in Guatemala. Overall the article helps understand very well

the situations these indigenous girls face leading them to marry early and mentions how it

connects to high rates of girls not attending school.

Johnson, Jennifer. “Promoting Equity for Girls in Guatemala’s Public Primary Education

System.” Advancing Women in Leadership, no. 1, 2017. The article describes an initiative

called “Guatemala Girls' Education Initiative” which is founded by Basic Education

Strengthening (BEST). This article covers the access to education for indigenous girls in

public primary schools in Guatemala. It provides a lot of information about the

challenges indigenous girls face in Guatemala's education system. The article also

describes information about what girls' education was like before in Guatemala and what

is the current state of girls’ education now. Some issues found are low enrollments, low

attendance and school completion rates among girls. It also describes the help the

initiative gives girls, some of which are scholarships, teacher training on gender issues

and material development. The article also mentions that a large collaboration with the

government is needed to address the obstacles girls face in obtaining an education. The

information was obtained from USAID project descriptions and reports. The article does

a great job in highlighting the problems marginalized girls in Guatemala face and gives

solutions to help overcome these obstacles.

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Malott, Krista M., and Martha Herrmansdörfer De Zaid. “Gender Bias in Guatemalan Counselor

Education Students: Using an Experiential Activity as a Stimulus.” International Journal

for the Advancement of Counselling, vol. 29, no. 1, 2007, pp. 33–42. This article studies

three universities in Guatemala by conducting a role play activity about gender bias with

counseling psychology students. The students played roles of husband and wife in a

marital conflict scenario. Then the students discussed gender biases and influences after

swapping roles. The students ended up seeing women as emotional, submissive,

victimized, while seeing men as rigid and aggressive. They connected this to cultural

beliefs about machismo and marianismo. Most evidence in the study was obtained from

the students' opinions in the activity about gender roles and biases.

Mather, Darin M. “Gender Attitudes in Religious Schools: A Comparative Study of Religious

and Secular Private Schools in Guatemala.” Religions (Basel, Switzerland ), vol. 9, no. 7,

2018, pp. 1-17. This article shows results of a study evaluating the effects private

religious schools have on students' gender role beliefs in Guatemala. Surveys were

conducted with students from Catholic, Evangelical and Secular schools. The author

categorized students into three beliefs about gender: non-egalitarian, publicly egalitarian,

and generally egalitarian. It was shown Catholic school students are more generally

egalitarian than secular or Evangelical students, and Evangelical students are more likely

to be non-egalitarian or publically egalitarian. The author emphasizes the need to develop

more conceptual models to describe gender attitudes. Overall, the study provides

information about the role religious schools play in shaping students' gender beliefs

across different religious schools.