Maternal expectations on academic achievements and gender bias

What is it about?

Understanding the impact of expectations that mothers have from their primary school going children in academics and whether there is a difference in the expectations between the sons and daughters. This study was conducted in Urban Bangalore and the sample consisted of educated graduate mothers who distinctively did not exhibit gender bias but it percolated through various other factors.

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Why is it important?

Though India has seen a lot of progress (socially, economically and in academics), a few sections of society continue to discourage women from attending and even completing school. It is not very evident in the early years but by the time the girl reaches 18 years of age there is a lot of pressure on her to take on the domestic responsibilities and forget education (at least for some time). I felt an urgent need to understand why women( particularly mothers) being highly educated themselves still believe in traditional ideas as these. The results obtained were not startling but neither were they completely reliable because of indirect pressure on the participants to divulge only partial information. Also, the lack of sufficient Indian literature on this topic furthered my interest and hence the focus on maternal expectations.