Participatory Games : Research Part 2
Aspirations evolve over a period of time and they change according to age when you are an adolescent. Why you prioritise something is influensed by the society, peer group, aspirations of parents, upbringing and various other factors. This research was an attempt at looking at how the adolescent girls think about their lives and future.
The Method:
Participatory games are a tool used to do Participatory Research. In my opinion it helps in engaging the participants and helps the researcher learn about situations and about the user through the activity itself.
I learned that the activities can evolve on the spot to become something the participants are more interested in.
This time I designed three activities with an agenda behind each :
- The Good Girl / आदर्श लड़की
I wanted to understand what is the definition of a good girl in the adolescent girl’s eyes. The only difference was this time I would be sketching whatever the girls would tell me. In a previous session, when I have asked the girls to sketch, the focus shifted from aspirations to sketching.
2. Card Sorting
I created a set of 32 cards which depicted different aspirations, some imaginary, some realistic, some related with material possession, some with personal growth etc. Through the card sorting I wanted to understand how the girls prioritise things and what was their reasoning. (available for download here)
3. Jobs and Gender
I also wanted to understand how gender effected the adolescent girls ability to think about certain jobs. I created a set of jobs some familiar and some unfamiliar to keep the interest high. (available for download here)
Location: Primary School at Aamli Village
Class : 8th Std Age: 14 yrs No. of girls: 15
Background :Kishoris from this village were quite active. When I asked them to introduce themselves, the biggest difference was that a few girls were interested in sports and painting as well.
Activity 1 : Adarsh Girl / आदर्श लड़की
When I asked them who was a good girl, we started with what that girl was wearing. Almost everyone said that girl wears an Anarkali suit but two girls, the ones who also liked sports asked why can’t she wear jeans?
I grabbed on to that and said I will create two versions, not everyone has to stick with one idea. The girls named the sketch Tamanna, aged 16 yrs and decided that she stayed in Aamli itself and goes to school. She had long hair and her sleeves of the kurta were long. She had a book in one hand and the other hand had a rolling pin to represent cooking.(household work)
When we talked about what the girl does at home, similar activities as their own lives came out, household chores, helping their mother etc. It was quite run of the mill.
When I switched to the girl who wore jeans, the answers became interesting. Her name was Sakshi and she stayed in a big city.
There was no mention of household chores. The aspirations also became different. Now the girl could also be a model, actor even a painter.
The reason the girls said was that in a village they did not have the time t0 pursue hobbies like painting while a city girl will have time to paint.
Also, a city girl had a smartphone in hand and she had friends from both genders. The city girl travelled as much as she liked. The city girl was not told that if she goes out of the house to travel she will be tagged as loose.
City being big, every one lives their lives. The concept of Samaj/समाज /society does not exist in cities as strongly as it exists in villages. Therefore as soon as the girl in the sketch moved to a city, her aspirations changed.
It wasn’t just the society, it was also Poverty which the girls gave as a reason for why the city girl did things differently than the village girl.
City Girl became synonymous with having money and freedom.
Activity 2: Card Sorting
Everyone was really excited for this game. I divided the group into two parts. The task was to arrange the cards according to what they liked more than the other. The girls grabbed at the cards to pick the ones they liked the most.
They arranged their card in order and dicussed it with other girls before placing.They all knew that education, a job was important and therefore they placed it on top.They related flying, going under water or seeing things with travelling and having fun in general which they prioritise as second.
They were equally interested in what things could be bought with money, new clothes, a big home, jewelry etc. They also showed an interest towards love. They all placed marriage towards the end which showed the success of the NGO’s efforts in creating awareness about child marriage in the area.
Activity 3: Gender roles
The idea was to question what jobs men could do and women could do.The girls tagged a lot of jobs as men’s jobs on the basis of what they have seen around them.They tagged managing waste as a woman’s job whilst flying planes became a man’s job, women also worked in planes but they did not fly the planes! They have never seen a plane pilot but they decided that it was a man’s job anyways.
This led to questioning how and why did repairing electronics become a man’s job ? Beside other people discriminating due to gender do we ourselves discriminate the jobs we can do because we are girls/ women? Because we doubt our abilities to learn certain skills ?
Choosing certain jobs for your gender also points at lack of self esteem and confidence.
Location : House at Aamli Village No. of girls:5
Background :The girls had stopped studying and stayed at home. When I asked them what did their day looked like, they said, there was nothing to tell since they stayed at home.
The experience of doing these activities was different with these girls than the school girls. There was very little motivation, the activity had to be explained a few times before they said they understood how to do it. It took longer to start a dialogue with them and even then they had to be prompted to speak up & participate.
Activity 1: Village Girl/City Girl
The Village girl’s name was Aradhana, 21 yrs and she was pursuing nursing (inspired from the fact the one girl herself wanted to do). Owning a smartphone becomes synonymous with a city girl. The image they had in mind was of a girl who had a lot of fun as compared to a girl in the village.
Activity 2: Card Sorting
The marked difference was in the aspirations of the girls. There was a lot more emphasis on material possessions. Also, because they were older, marriage showed up on top of their priorities.
When I introduced Money into the equation, what if you had a lot of money, how will the order change, education and job lost their position. For some, it disappeared all together from the list. Smartphones, laptop, jewellery, T.V., owning a bike etc. were more important in the list.
Activity 3: Gender Roles
It was similar to the activity done at Aamli School where in they chose what jobs girls can do on the basis of what the jobs they have seen men and women engaging already engaging in.
Location: Jeetawas village in Relmangra Tehsil
Age: 11–12 yrs Class: 6th & 7th Std. Number of Girls: 8
The interesting thing was that I conducted these sessions with much younger girls.
The young girls were brimming with excitement. We started sketching and this girl Meena wore a skirt and a top. She wanted to be everything that they have learned women could be. They did not have any limits. One of the girl said she could also be an engineer because she has heard someone say that about someone.
They enthusiastically discussed what they wish their school had more, a playground, a better library which allowed them to take books, a water cooler, a football court, a cricket ground and what not. This girl had a book in her hand and not a smartphone.There wasn’t a differentiation between city living and village living.
I felt that it was the age which removed the differences. The older the girls got, the more household chores they did. The more their responsibilities increased. When you are younger your dreams are not bound with practicality.
Also, being younger meant that they did not care about possessing a smartphone (material things).
Activity 2: Card Sorting
When I did this activity I learned that the biggest difference was the aspirations. The idea of flying, going under water etc. was most exciting for the girls. They wanted to have fun, hang out with their friends and explore.
But as soon I introduced money and city in the equation, again the aspirations disappeared and the material possessions took centre stage.
It made me realise that money is the goal. Money makes aspirations go away because they feel they have achieved everything once they have the money. Money & city makes them instead think about things they will buy.
I am going to write about my analysis from the User Research in the next blog !
