Gender discourses in an NGO education project: Openings for transformation toward gender equality in Bangladesh Joan DeJaeghere *, Nancy Pellowski Wiger College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, 330 Wulling Hall, 86 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA 1. Introduction Gender equality in education, as set out in the Education for All and Millennium Development Goals, has been a widely adopted discourse by donors, governments and nongovernmental orga- nizations (NGOs), even though the meanings and measures of gender equality differ in these two mandates (Mundy, 2006; Stromquist, 2008; Unterhalter and North, 2011). To meet these international goals, Mundy and Murphy (2001) argue that NGOs have become critical actors in ‘‘spreading norms and changes in intergovernmental and governmental discourse’’ (Sikkink and Keck in Mundy and Murphy, 2001, p. 90) and they also offer ‘‘forceful alternatives to the current structure’’ of global agendas and society (p. 93). NGOs, as ‘‘an alternative space’’ (Fraser in Magno, 2008, p. 127), are particularly interesting to examine because they negotiate their roles in relation to these global discourses and local interests and needs. We are only beginning to understand through empirical studies how NGO programs addressing gender inequalities articulate with international, state and local community discourses about gender. On the one hand, NGOs as civil society actors play a critical role in furthering gender mainstreaming through the state (Rai, 2008). On the other hand, NGOs also act as ‘‘subaltern counterpublics. . . [that] are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses’’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 81). In contrast to these perspectives, Kamat (2004), in her theorization of NGO discourse in a neoliberal era, challenges us to consider how global policy actors, such as UN agencies, ‘‘accommo- date NGOs into their strategies by depoliticizing the private sphere’’ and the work in local communities (p. 157). Given these differentially situated roles, NGOs are not homogenous in how they foster gender equality as the staff at different levels and actors with whom they engage bring diverse perspectives and actions to a gender project. In this study, we take the position that actors within and recipients of an NGO project utilize international and state discourses about gender equality as well as local discourses to make claims for justice. In a study of an Indian NGO with a women’s empowerment agenda, Sharma (2008) argues that by closely examining the discourses of different actors we can see how NGO projects may depoliticize and reproduce power hierarchies as well as spawn subaltern political activism centered on redistribution and justice (pp. xxi–xxii). Drawing on Sharma’s approach to under- standing multiple discourses and their transformative possibilities, our aim in this article is to examine discourses of gender equality in an NGO project so as to understand how local actors might produce transformations toward gender equality at the micro-level while also being embedded in a transnational NGO project. Manion (2008), in her examination of the dynamics of women’s empowerment in The Gambia, calls for ‘‘attention to be paid to the International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 557–565 A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Gender equality Teachers Nongovermental organizations Bangladesh Gender justice A B S T R A C T This article seeks to illustrate how various actors participating in a non-governmental organization (NGO) education project in two Bangladeshi communities represent different framings of gender. Teachers, as critical actors in this education project, utilize multiple discourses of gender equality and when viewed in relation to community members’, parents’ and students’ ideas of gender equality, we argue their discursive practices can create spaces for transformation. The use of multiple discourses suggests that specific local adaptations of women in development (WID), gender and development (GAD), post-structural and rights and capabilities approaches may all be useful in the work toward gender justice as these approaches inform the different meanings of gender equality in the communities. We conclude that NGOs play a critical role in making micro-level changes in schools as well as have a broader impact on communities and national agendas by engaging different actors’ uses of gender equality discourses. ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 612 626 8258; fax: +1 612 624 3377. E-mail addresses: deja0003@umn.edu (J. DeJaeghere), pell0097@umn.edu (N.P. Wiger). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Development jo ur n al ho m ep ag e: ww w.els evier .c om /lo cat e/ijed u d ev 0738-0593/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2013.02.002