sigur center summer research fellows 2023 – Sigur Center for Asian Studies

A selfie with three people sitting at a table

Tracing back the memory lane, Summer 2023

October 11, 2023October 11, 2023Sigur Center 2023 Summer Fellows, Sigur Center Summer Research & Language FellowsLeave a Comment

Prerna Dokania
Economics PhD Candidate, GWU

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is a growing focus sector in developing countries. Quite like the HeadStart program in the USA, developing countries like Bangladesh, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan have had some ECCE policy in place. This sector has gained prominence in recent years due to the proven importance of early childhood human capital formation in the long run labor market and developmental outcomes. India’s early childhood education program, called the Anganwadi system, is one such policy framework within which children from age 0-6 years and pregnant and lactating women are supported in the form of supplementary nutrition, immunization services and health and education provision, monitoring and guidance. My summer research project aimed at surveying such ECCE providers, referred to as Anganwadi workers, from a semi-urban district – Begusarai, in Bihar, India. The objective was to survey a randomly selected sample of ~ 450 Anganwadi workers and collect data on their perceptions related to functioning of the Anganwadi system at the local level and assess their content-based knowledge of ECCE activities.
In this blog, I want to share my field work experiences and some tips for future survey-based projects.

Bihar is one of the biggest states in India supporting ~ 9 percent of India’s population and infamously part of the BIMARU states (translated in Hindi as ‘sick’ states/ economically disadvantage states). As per the latest national family survey in India, Bihar has an average fertility rate of 3 children per woman compared to the country’s average of 2. This makes Bihar a suitable candidate for understanding the challenges faced by the ECCE workers at the local level. This was going to be my first time in Bihar, even though I had spent my early teens in Jharkhand, a state that was separated from erstwhile Bihar in the year 2000. People in Bihar live in a predominantly patriarchal society set-up with a less than 5% female labor force participation rate. I had anticipated that surveying groups of women in Bihar could be challenging given the cultural/social barriers and had raised quite a few eyebrows for picking Begusarai, Bihar as my study site.

Contrary to my priors, I was pleasantly surprised to witness women at the forefront of the social welfare department (the government body responsible for ECCE policy implementation). The organizational structure is as follows: a district is typically divided into projects, which are further subdivided into sectors, and Anganwadi centers, respectively. Given the target population of the policy, most of the organizational leadership in the department were comprised of women. I conducted surveys in randomly selected sectors and, hence, I had to coordinate with multiple office bearers before planning every survey session. The women leaders I met were very driven, knowledgeable, and resourceful. They had several questions for me; What is the purpose of your survey? Why do you want to survey Anganwadi workers in the absence of their supervisors? What is the potential outcome of your research? Why did I choose their project for my study? These questions felt like a blessing. The project officers seemed interested in the research and had several stories to share with me. Some of them had a lot of encouraging insights on my survey questions and experiment implementation as well. I am grateful to each one of the project heads and the sector heads for helping me organize the survey sessions with ease. One important field-survey lesson here was that I could have prepared an informal questionnaire for such interactions. I also realized that preparing for field-work implementation takes a lot more time (other than writing surveys or research hypothesis) and being at the study-site one-two weeks in advance is instrumental for securing official permissions, scheduling, procuring material and training your team.

A group of people standing and looking at the camera

The one with the team! Pilot Day; Preparing for Day One

An obvious tip that all field researchers have in their experience book is – Pilot your survey! Revise the survey! I could not agree more. I would say, if possible, Pilot again and revise yet again! I saw my survey material metamorphose in one week. I had spent at least a month refining my survey questions sitting behind my laptop in the comfort of my office in Washington DC. But the perspective you get from the field pilot experience is just four-fold. The interaction with respondents is crucial to understand how they are perceiving each question. I had hired a local field management team, and together we spent hours discussing each question in detail and modifying the exact language of the questions. After the pilot, we revisited our surveys. Some questions were dropped, some were enhanced with pictures/emojis, and some were rearranged to facilitate the survey design.

Another big lesson that I learnt from this field experience is regarding survey language translation. My surveys were going to be in Hindi, but I had been editing the English version more than the Hindi version while I was off-site. I had discussed the English version of surveys with my academic advisors and colleagues. However, since I had the benefit of knowing Hindi, I feel I could have saved a lot of time if I had been editing the Hindi version of my surveys instead of perfecting the English version first and then translating it to Hindi. Thus, if the researcher knows the local language, I highly recommend making the edits in the local language first and then translating it into English for IRB purposes. Maybe, being an ambidexter would have helped!

Once we got the ball rolling, everything started falling in place. Every day was a new location, sometimes covering two sessions in a day. A lab-in-the-field project can have lots of moving pieces for a typical session, in terms of having paper forms printed, keeping cash handy for reimbursements (if the surveys are incentivized with cash payments), organizing food packets, carrying spare stationary for respondents and so on. It was a through-and-through learning experience for me and my team. You must maintain inventory of all such items, and even a simple excel sheet can go a long way to help you be organized.

Various survey locations; Begusarai, Bihar, India.

With fieldwork, another important thing to consider is the timing of the survey. The weather was not always on our side. Initially the temperatures were as high as 95°F and as we neared completion of the project, monsoon season had hit. We even encountered waterlogging up to 2 feet on two survey occasions. One should account for such local factors before planning field-based surveys. For instance, months like March-April could be more favorable than July-August in tropical regions of India. I was running almost a week behind my schedule, but usually for larger scale projects there one should keep more buffer. Most of the study locations comprised of a small government building used for regular meetings or a close-by Anganwadi center itself. Some survey locations were spacious, some had proper seating arrangements, some had electricity, while some didn’t have such convenient features. Notwithstanding these barriers, the survey subjects and my team showed utmost resilience and cooperated. We were able to complete the planned project and surveyed 457 respondents in total.

Amidst the daily conundrum of preparing for and travelling to a new location, one constant feature was the enthusiasm of the survey respondents. Typical sessions used to be 3-3.5 hours long and often we had to wait up to 1 hour beyond the scheduled time for all invited respondents to arrive. Nevertheless, the subjects showed patience and had each other’s back as they called and insisted their fellow mates to join us sooner! There were no respondents who did not consent to participate in the study. I was most touched by the hospitality of the subjects. During one of the sessions, the respondents served us a home-cooked sumptuous meal at the end of the session. I wish I had taken a picture! In another session a respondent, who received 130 INR and a book as the final compensation from the research experiment, returned with 3 pens for me and my team to express her gratitude. It was a very humble experience, to say the least! These women who have been working for the social welfare of their communities, at a modest honorarium/stipend, were already spending their valuable time with us and still had a sense of sharing. This survey was more than just a survey for them. Somebody had come over to know more about them, discuss their work with them, and it made them feel more motivated and encouraged.

The one with respondents! (Pics shared by respondents)

As I proceed to analyze the data I have collected, I carry these wonderful memories and wish to expand the scope of my research with a follow-up study.

PS: Thank you for reading my blog! To read up more on the actual findings of this research project, stay tuned to my webpage https://sites.google.com/view/prernadokania/home.

Bio: Prerna Dokania is a PhD candidate in Economics at the George Washington University, Washington DC. She is a Sigur Center Summer 2023 Research Fellow. To learn more about her, visit her website: https://sites.google.com/view/prernadokania/home%20.

A picture of a neighborhood in Indonesia

From Under the Overpass to Higher Education

September 6, 2023September 6, 2023Sigur Center 2023 Summer FellowsLeave a Comment

Indonesia’s present 3% increase in annual urbanization rate and rapid pace of rural-to-urban in-migration has accompanied the expansion of urban poverty. Currently, Indonesia’s 22% of the population (29 million) are living in urban slums alongside train tracks, riverbanks, and canals that are often flood-prone (Burger et al., 2019; Kusumaningrum et al., 2021). Importantly, the 29 million urban poor populations include the children living in Jakarta slums who I have encountered and taught every school recess since 2016. I have had a keen passion for ensuring quality and equal learning opportunities for those children, and thanks to the generous support of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, I could have an opportunity to return to Jakarta and meet with the children again this summer. Over one month of staying there, I conducted interviews with children to understand their experiences in education at an NGO learning center while providing them with basic Korean language lessons.

Every visit to Jakarta always brought me with new insights. However, this summer research trip was particularly special and unforgettable as I had a chance to visit my students’ houses thanks to their parents’ invitation and listen to the stories of volunteer teachers who used to be on the streets. Both home visits and teachers’ stories reaffirmed to me that urban slum children are not deprived in terms of lack of educational opportunities and are not social malice. In contrast to the predominant deficit view, the children are supported to learn and have high motivation to pursue higher education.

Visiting students’ homes: Kontrakan & under the overpass

After walking the windy and narrow streets surrounded by small warungs (family-owned street stalls) and going through the hustle-and-bustle traffic noise, two NGO teachers and I finally reached one of my students’ houses. It was quite challenging to find the place since the house was unseen from the main road. We had to walk deep inside a small alley behind warteg (food stall). My student’s parents warmly welcomed us to come inside the house. The house was kontrakan, a honeycomb-like rental house where residents (often family groups) rent each room of the small house on a monthly or a yearly basis, which was a typical way of living among my students studying at the NGO learning center. I sat down in the shared living room with the parents and NGO teachers, and we spoke about our student’s learning conditions. During our conversation, from sensing our presence, one child after another child woke up in the rooms and came out to the living room where we were.

Figure 1. The narrow alley attached to the main road had to be passed to reach kontrakan.

We then visited another student’s house. After taking an angkot (mini-van-like shared taxis) and crossing the road where cars were running, we reached an overpass. When we walked deeper and further under the overpass, we encountered a small community. Houses were built with wooden boards, and adults and children were sorting the piles of pet plastic bottles that they collected into sacks. Chickens and cats were wandering around them. Noticing our visit, children (including our students) walked towards us for salim (hand-kissing to show respect to the elders) and Mrs. Putri, one of the student’s mothers, invited us to her house. The house was self-made by her husband with wooden boards, and the rectangular space was practically equipped with a kitchen and drawer at each corner. Mrs. Putri then showed us around the house, including the self-made well where she does her laundry with neighbors.

Figure 2. There was a community under the overpass living in self-made houses.

Figure 3. Mrs. Putri guided me and the NGO teachers to the well where she does her laundry.

The two formats of houses were typical living spaces of my students as their parents mostly work as ngamen (street singers), pedagang asongan (street vendors), drivers, construction laborers, and more earning meager income. While economic hardships, limited physical living spaces, and housing insecurities might be the facets that I could understand, what was the most inspiring to me was the neighborhood’s close interactions and mutual care of children. In both houses (i.e., kontrakan and under the overpass) and during our conversations with students’ parents, neighbors were looking after children by feeding them, checking children if they attended schools/learning centers, and joining our conversations with parents with the interest in discussing children’s well-being. From seeing the interactions, I understood that such supportive neighborhoods have enabled children to continue attending the NGO learning center, keep up with their academic motivation, and gain socio-emotional skills.

Respecting volunteer teachers as role models: Towards advanced education

In addition to the neighborhoods’ contribution to fostering a positive environment for children’s education, the stories of volunteer teachers and the teachers’ interactions with children further boosted children’s motivation for coming to the learning center. At the NGO learning center, three teachers were especially respected by students for their “successful stories” and their close interactions with students. Through the one-on-one conversations I had with the three teachers, I realized how crucial their presence at the learning center for the students. Those three teachers had commonalities in that they used to live on the streets and study at the learning center, and now they teach as volunteer teachers after graduating from high school.

The current head coordinator of the NGO learning center, Teacher Bintang used to help his parents earn extra income by playing a small guitar on the streets and bagging money since he was very young. He however gradually stopped street life after starting to attend the learning center since he was in second grade in primary school. He said that the learning at the center which he began at the suggestion of an NGO teacher, whom he met on the streets, changed him to understand the direction in life and motivated him to complete his high school education. Another teacher, Teacher Indah, who currently works as an accountant at an IT company even completed her high school and university education with the scholarships granted by the learning center. Teacher Arief who is now employed after graduating high school is still living in the kontrakan adjacent to some students’ houses, giving much care and attention and listening to everyone’s concerns like a big brother.

The three teachers have shared reasons motivating them to volunteer to teach every weekend. They hoped for children in slums (1) to have equal learning opportunities and happiness as their non-slum peers; (2) to live off from streets by pursuing higher education; and (3) to receive love and attention that they may lack from their busy parents. The teachers’ hopes indeed have been reflected and conveyed through their teaching and interactions with students at the center. According to students, they have increased academic motivation and willingness to attend the center by acknowledging their teachers’ caring words and considering the teachers as respectable role models whom they hope to emulate.

Conclusion: Key takeaway

Visiting students’ homes enabled me to better understand my students’ economically difficult situations. However, a more important understanding I gained was that such situations neither limit students’ learning nor justify their marginalization which is often a dominant view towards children in urban slums. Instead, urban slum neighborhoods’ collected care has been a protective factor supporting children’s socio-emotional and academic learning. Furthermore, the interactions that volunteer teachers have with students have been additional enablers for students, who see the teachers as their role models, to recognize their own possibilities of earning jobs outside the streets and pursuing higher education. Therefore, the important lesson of this research trip was clear: Jakarta slums were not a place of marginalization that needs help, but it is the place where children access learning opportunities and care, and ultimately find motivation for learning and the direction of life.

Note. I used pseudonyms for all names in this blog post to protect their anonymity.

References

Burger, N., Glick, P. J., Perez-Arce, F., Rabinovich, L., Rana, Y. R. L., Srinivasan, S., & Yoong, J. (2013). Indonesia: Urban poverty and program review. World Bank Group. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/263151468275080963/indonesia-urban-poverty-analysis-and-program-review

Kusumaningrum, S., Siagian, C., Sari, W. L., Adhi, A. A., Wandasari, W., Febrianto, R., & Tieken, S. (2021). The situation of children and young people in Indonesian cities. Pusat Kajian dan Advokasi Perlindungan dan Kualitas Hidup Anak Universitas Indonesia (PUSKAPA), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, & Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional (BAPPENAS). https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/media/12166/file/The%20Situation%20Analysis%20of%20Children%20and%20Young%20People%20in%20Indonesian%20Cities.pdf

By InJung Cho, Sigur Center Summer 2023 Field Research Grant Fellow. Cho is a Ph.D. student in Education at George Washington University. Cho researches educational inequality and learner identity of children in urban slums of Jakarta, Indonesia.