Gender, Literacy and Empowerment in Rural Colombia

Abstract

Empowerment, understood as a process by which women increase their capacity to reexamine their own lives and aid those around them, as well as to question their roles as social agents, becomes critical in relation to the complex processes of literacy. This study takes a phenomenological approach to exploring the perceptions of a group of rural Colombian women on the path to literacy via the program Alfabetización Virtual Asistida en la Educación de Jóvenes y Adultos (Virtually Assisted Literacy in Youth and Adult Education) and discusses the dynamics of empowerment in the daily lives of these women during and after the program. Using the concepts of critical social theory and critical theory as a theoretical framework, this study demonstrates that programs such as this help women to reveal and reinvent their previously hidden identities; however, they offer only limited opportunities to challenge a stubborn patriarchal culture that insists on placing them in the domestic realm. The importance of this study relies on the fact that it identifies specific issues with regard to constraints in rural women’s education; therefore, there is an urgent need for government, academia, international agencies, and civil society to jointly participate in the implementation and execution of adult literacy programs. These programs must imperatively focus on gender inclusion and continuing education past the elementary stages, as well as on functional literacy that effectively impacts the lives of rural women in terms of decision-making, personal and family health care, reproductive health, and entry into the labor market.

Keywords: Adult literacy, Colombia, gender, rural women, empowerment, literacy programs.