REIMAGINING MASCULINITY

DESIGN RESEARCH

OBJECTIVE

COLLABORATORS: IT for change | Srishti institute of design

Redefining gender roles for school children in rural Mysore | Creating a framework and suggestions to build weekly activities that the NGO will conduct with the boys in the upcoming year

BACKGROUND:

IT for Change is an NGO based in Bengaluru, which demonstrates alternative ways in which digital technologies can be envisioned, and programs designed and implemented, to strengthen the marginalized sections of society.

Prakriye field centre has been working with adolescent girls by holding innovative digital media-based learning dialogues to strengthen their agency and leadership

They are expanding the scope of its work to reach out to adolescent boys as without creating alternative imaginaries of masculinities at the local level, it is difficult to make progress in the area of empowering adolescent girls.

It for Change and Prakriye are in the process of brainstorming the curriculum for these learning as a part of the strategic design.

The particular challenge and an opportunity are to explore how the methods of design inquiry can be brought together to aid and assist in the goals of Prakriye, in this stage and beyond.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND CONTEXT:

INTERACTION DAY 1:

We did two activities with the kids - Daily routine mapping | likes and dislikes

Daily routine mapping: We asked the kids to map their daily activities starting from sunrise to sunset.
Likes and dislikes: The children wrote their likes and dislikes of the kids

INSIGHTS:

We found that the first day's data collection was not all that effective because we had activities that mostly writing. The boys expected some sort of physical activity and they got restless seeing the other group playing.

Most of the boys worked in the fields
Helped their mothers with their daily chores
Peer pressure played a major role during the session
(i.e) an instance where this happened was when a kid mentioned that he helped his mother cook, but he did not write it down on his routine because the other boys commented on him.
Most boys wanted to get into law and order (police & the army).
Wine shop near the school was the subject of most of the dislike cards
They associate alcoholism to everything wrong happening around

INTERACTION DAY 2:

From the experience of the previous interaction that kids beings restless, we incorporated data collection methods into their favourite games as a hybrid game. This immediately increased participation among the kids.

We did two activities with the kids - Kabadi with a twist | gender - word/word association

Kabadi with a twist: Understand their understanding of what boys do, boys don't and their view on girls/women.

Word/work association: The objective of the word association cards was to understand what words come up in the kids' minds as soon as they hear “Man” and “Woman”.