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"Adolescence is a pivotal time in a girl's life. The development of educational, physical, psychosocial, familial, political and economic capabilities enable girls to reach their full potential and contribute to the wellbeing of their families and society. However, progress is still significantly constrained by discriminatory gender norms and the related attitudes and practices which restrict girls horizons, restrain their ambition and, if unfettered, allow exploitation and abuse.Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries explores the detrimental impact of discriminatory gender norms on adolescent girls lives across very different contexts. Grounded in four years of in-depth research in Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and Viet Nam, the book adopts a holistic approach, recognising the inter-related nature of capabilities and the importance of local context. By exploring the theory of gendered norm change, contextualising and examining socialisation processes, the book identifies the patriarchal vested interests in power, authority and moral privilege, which combine in attempts to restrict and control girls lives. Throughout the book, Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries demonstrates how efforts to develop more egalitarian gender norms can enable disadvantaged adolescent girls to change the course of their lives and contribute to societal change. Accessible and informative, the book is perfect for policy makers, think tanks, NGOs, activists, academics and students of gender and development studies.? "--Provided by publisher.

Adolescence, wherever you live, is a potentially turbulent and challenging time and no less so in the four countries where we undertook our work. Here, transitions
through adolescence are fraught with difficulties, in part due to the deeply
embedded gender norms which determine what a girl can and cannot do and how
she must be. Each specific context came with its own factors: multi-ethnic and
multi-religious communities, remoteness, variable services (if any at all) and, sometimes,
a policy and cultural context without recognition of adolescence, where the
transition to adulthood is short or immediate rather than prolonged.
Nevertheless, what we know from biological sciences is that adolescence is a
developmental period – a time when the body and mind changes. These changes
bring with them potential which in the right context, can open new opportunities.
Our interest was in exploring that potential and how gendered norms might truncate
opportunities and limit the development of capabilities which every young
adult could aspire to own – the ability to have a political voice, to be educated,
to be in good health, to have control over one's body, to be free from violence, to
be able to own property and earn a livelihood, to be economically and politically
empowered.
We were intrigued by the very common experiences of adolescent girls across
multiple contexts. This learning and sharing enabled us to explore in much greater depth what norms are and how they operate within political and institutional
spaces at national and community levels. It also allowed us to explore the changing
and different conceptual understandings of gendered social relations, gender equality
and the usage of the term 'norm' to capture embedded, often implicit, informal
rules by which people abide, and which are bound into the values people and societies
accept implicitly, accept reluctantly or actively contest.