INVESTIGATING THE FEASIBILITY OF INCORPORATING AN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION COMPONENT: A CASE STUDY OF THE GIRL POWER PROJECT A Thesis by MITCHELL WADE BAKER Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Chair of Committee, Robert Strong, Jr. Committee Members, Manuel Piña, Jr. Silva Hamie Head of Department, Scott Shafer May 2019 Major Subject: Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications Copyright 2019 Mitchell Baker ABSTRACT The Girl Power Project is an existing girl’s empowerment program developed by the Just Like My Child Foundation in rural Uganda that equips girls to improve the wellbeing of their families and communities through the teaching of life skills and establishing of mentoring training. This program has experienced growth and success in their outreach to adolescent youth and has far reach into over 40 schools and communities in the Luweero Triangle where the programs are offered. According to the directors of the program, nearly all stakeholders of these communities have close ties to agriculture as a livelihood. However, agriculture education currently plays no role in the Girl Power Project curriculum. What is the feasibility of Just Like My Child to develop an agriculture education component for the Girl power Project, and for what challenges and opportunities should they be expecting and prepared for? This thesis study employs a case study method using semi-structured interviews among key stakeholder groups to answer this question. ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the field of agricultural international development. The work that is done for people around the world is bright and promising in many pursuits, but none show more promise than the potential to feed more people by empowering them through education to feed themselves, and others. To borrow a phrase from my chair, may this study help “move the needle” towards the side of the global dial leading to prospering communities, self-sufficiency for all peoples, and full bellies. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks is due to my committee chair, Dr. Strong, who has mentored and challenged me to think larger, write stronger, and plan more strategically than I ever thought I would be able to. I also am grateful to my committee members, Dr. Piña and Dr. Hamie, who made this experience possible when they gave me the opportunity to represent Texas A&M by conducting research in a developing nation, where I gained more life experience than I could have ever expected. Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues and the department faculty and staff for making my time at Texas A&M University an unforgettable experience. Finally, thanks to my mom and dad for their confidence, love, and hard work they’ve invested in raising me; making you proud will always be an important and joyful pursuit of my life. iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES This work was supervised by a thesis committee consisting of Professor Robert Strong Jr. as committee chair, Professor Manuel Piña, Jr. of the Department of Agriculture, Leadership, Education and Communications, and Professor Silva Hamie of the Department of International Affairs of the The Bush School of Government and Public Service. The data analyzed for Chapter III was provided in part by Texas A&M graduate students Marcus Jenkins, Lindsey Coleman, and Darienne Davis, who collected data alongside the student in Uganda. All other work conducted for this thesis was completed by the student independently. Graduate study was supported by an assistantship from Texas A&M University’s Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications. This work was made possible in part by the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies research scholarship, the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications high impact funding, and the Just Like My Child Foundation. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of those prior listed entities. v NOMENCLATURE GPP Girl Power Project JLMCF Just Like My Child Foundation NIFA National Institute of Food and Agriculture SDGs Sustainable Development Goals TOP Targeting Outcomes of Programs UN United Nations USDA United States Department of Agriculture vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES .............................................................. v NOMENCLATURE .......................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................... 5 Objectives of the Study .................................................................................................. 5 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................... 6 Time and Place of the Study .......................................................................................... 7 Scope and Limitation ..................................................................................................... 8 Budget and Time Table ................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER II .................................................................................................................... 13 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................ 13 Review of Literature..................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER III ................................................................................................................... 17 Method and Research Design ....................................................................................... 17 Subject Selection .......................................................................................................... 24 Instrumentation............................................................................................................. 26 Data Collection Procedures .......................................................................................... 31 Data Analysis Procedures............................................................................................. 32 vii CHAPTER IV .................................................................................................................. 33 Analysis of Data ........................................................................................................... 33 What have you learned through the girl power project? .............................................. 33 How do you feel about your agricultural skills- growing vegetables, fattening animals, etc.? ................................................................................................................ 40 If given the choice, would you choose a career in agriculture? Why or why not? ...... 43 What more would you like to be done in the girl power project? Why? ..................... 46 Should agriculture education be a part of the girl power project? Why or why not? .. 49 What was the reasoning behind how the program objectives for the GPP curriculum were written? ............................................................................................. 51 How do you teach the GPP curriculum? ...................................................................... 56 Should agricultural education be taught to the participants through the GPP? ............ 60 Think about your experiences as a facilitator of GPP. How do you feel you could improve to be a better facilitator? ................................................................................ 65 If agriculture education became a component in the GPP, what would you require to be a successful facilitator? ....................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................... 71 Conclusions for Objective One .................................................................................... 71 Implications for Objective One .................................................................................... 73 Practice Recommendations for Objective One ............................................................ 74 Conclusions for Objective Two.................................................................................... 75 Implications for Objective Two ................................................................................... 76 Practice Recommendations for Objective Two ............................................................ 77 Practice Recommendations for the Just Like My Child Foundation ........................... 78 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 80 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 83 APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................... 92 Thesis Timeline Document .......................................................................................... 92 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 95 Intended Interview Questions....................................................................................... 96 IRB Review Letter ....................................................................................................... 98 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Adapted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. ........................................ 14 Figure 2. Adapted from “Viewing Agricultural Education Research Through a Qualitative Lens,” by K. Dooley, 2007, Journal of Agricultural Education, Volume 4, page 32. ........................................................................................... 22 Figure 3. Adapted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. ....................................... 26 Figure 4. Adapted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. ....................................... 28 ix LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. TOP Key Subjective Indicators with Corresponding Interview Questions. Adapted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs: A Hierarchy for Targeting Outcomes and Evaluating their Achievement,” by Rockwell, K., and C. Bennett., 2004., Paper 48, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, http:// digitalcommons.unl.edu/aglecfacpub/48 .......................................................... 30 x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Since its inception in 2006, the Just Like My Child Foundation (JLMC) has worked to empower vulnerable adolescent girls by enabling them to create healthy, self- sustaining families who prosper without further aid (Just Like My Child, 2018). As a part of their mission, JLMC created the Girl Power Project (GPP) in order to teach young girls aged 10-15 an empowerment curriculum that specializes in teaching them psychological, familial, interpersonal, social-cultural, economic and political dimensions of empowerment. In the nine years that GPP has been facilitated, 2,874 girls, 1,070 boys and 2,348 teachers and parents have been directly impacted by the program. GPP has been implemented in 42 schools in rural Uganda, with plans to expand to more in 2018 (Just Like My Child, 2018). While Uganda produces more than it consumes agriculturally, poverty limits people’s access to nutritious food, particularly in the north and east region (Uganda, 2018). Uganda hosts 1.3 million refugees who have fled from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and other neighboring countries, hosting more than any other nation in Africa (Uganda, 2018). This further complicates the field of agriculture in Uganda, as smallholder farmers lack knowledge or access to basic services such as handling techniques, storage facilities, insurance, and other vessels that help sustain successful, food-secure farms and households (Uganda, 2018). These problems and more have led to the nation’s people being consistently undernourished, and even 1 worse for children, in which one in three school children have no food to eat during the day (Uganda, 2018). Uganda’s condition has led to being a constant focus of the international relief stage and has undergone coordinated efforts to address these issues and more from many non-government organizations and most notably, the United Nations (UN). Recently, the UN established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to accomplish and target defined achievement for Uganda and other developing nations (SDG 2, 2018). SDG 2’s goal is to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” (SDG 2, 2018, para. 1). While extension and privatized extension services exist in Uganda to aid and assist farmers with best practices for their operations, the communities of this study’s focus are often unable to afford such counsel, and therefore inherently fall short of the opportunity to improve their yield, keep their livestock healthy, and empower themselves to new levels of financial self-sufficiency and agricultural faculty (Mukembo & Edwards, 2015). Furthermore, the literature shows that even if farmers had access to private consultation at an affordable price, Ugandan farmers seek agricultural advice from their local contacts, whether they be neighbors or endogenous community group leaders, just as frequent as they do extension specialists (Gunter et al., 2017). The condition for women in Uganda is of critical importance to better understand the context of this study. Forty-six (46%) of females in Uganda are married before the age of 18 years (World Vision, 2013). However, Uganda is among the nations that have 2 in recent years witnessed a sudden increase in the prevalence of consensual unions (United Nations, 2015). Despite this progress, nearly three in ten girls have their first child before the age of 18 (World Bank, 2017). Ugandan women’s access to education must also be highlighted to understand the context of this study. Ugandan law structures compulsory education through primary school, in which most students’ families are required to pay school fees for scholastic materials and a midday meal, usually a cup of porridge (United States Department of State, 2017). Other barriers also keep females from pursuing education, especially traditional beliefs, such as favoring boys over girls to send to school, security concerns regarding the travel of females to and from their homes to the schools, and the loss of one, if not both, parents causing the girl of the family to care for her younger siblings (Robinson & Young, 2007). Marriage is tied to a Ugandan woman’s educational status, as an inverse relationship between polygyny and education; “married women in a polygynous union decreases from 33 percent among women with no education to 20 percent among women with more than secondary education” (ICF International, 2012, p. 49). Girls also face a greater challenge to maintain constant attendance in school due to both threats of sexual violence and body matters and changes. In Uganda, unmarried girls that become pregnant risk expulsion from school: this is based on cultural or religious grounds (Fancy et al. 2012). Even if a young girl is able to avoid pregnancy or early marriage, 3 female absenteeism has been correlated with the inevitable development of menstruation. While a decrease in absenteeism has been linked with school-provided menstruation pads and sanitary products, often times schools cannot afford or choose not to provide such services (Crofts & Fisher, 2012). Another critical facet of context is the abortion laws of the nation. While Uganda’s government has liberalized their abortion laws in recent years, the sole conditions in which abortion is permitted are contingent on the risk of fetal impairment or in case of rape or incest (United Nations, 2014). This problem compounds when the risks or sheer existence of child marriage is ignored by the community. It is also exacerbated by the constitutional law of Uganda, which states a surgical operation upon a female for the purposes of preserving the mother’s life must meet criterion that is widely agreed to be unrealistic in the area of rural, central Uganda in which this study takes place (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2018). Land ownership rights is also a concern to consider in setting the stage for this study. Ugandan women are often stymied from full land ownership rights. Instead they are offered only some protection to have exclusive security of tenure over family land, and often times fare poorly before the local courts in which land disputes are often settled (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2006). This becomes further complicated if a domestic union were to separate, which in Uganda is an abnormally high rate for the region at 30% - 40% of marriages ending in divorce (Clark & Brauner- Otto, 2015). This barrier is made more difficult by there existing no law specifically 4 protecting women from battery or spousal rape (United States Department of State, 2001). Statement of the Problem Currently, no agriculture education is being taught to any of the participants of the Girl Power Project. Would incorporating agriculture education into the curriculum of an existing girl’s empowerment program help better achieve the mission of accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals? The community members of central Uganda live and work in rural or semi-rural communities, and all have some tie to agriculture. Most people in Central Uganda farm to earn an income, while also serving as the primary means by which people feed their families. Would the Just Like My Child’s Girl Power Project further improve their participants wellbeing if they incorporated agricultural education into their curriculum? Are the best teaching strategies being utilized to teach the participants of the Girl Power Project? Finally, is the curriculum effective in implementing change to their students? Objectives of the Study The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of incorporating an agriculture education component into the Girl Power Project. The operating supposition was that stakeholders would like agriculture education to be taught through the program, but not as main component of the core curriculum, which is anchored in more foundational human rights knowledge and empowerment. This purpose of this study was accomplished by collecting data through interviews conducted with pertinent 5 stakeholders in the field that were then analyzed at Texas A&M University. This collection method will be explained more thoroughly in Chapter III. The findings will be explained in in depth in Chapter IV. The objective of this study was reached by answering the following two key research questions: 1. Do stakeholders of Central Uganda want agriculture education to be taught within the Girl Power Project? 2. What would be required for an agricultural education program to be conducted within the Girl Power Project? Significance of the Study More robust social science needs to be conducted within the field of agricultural education (Dooley, 2007). The opportunity to analyze an existing girls’ program in an international setting for teaching strategies, curriculum effectiveness and, ultimately, the possibility of developing and implementing an agricultural education component empowers this research with the opportunity to apply peer reviewed knowledge to a specific and, therefore, previously unexplored context. The results of this study may be generalizable if the characteristics of the context of JLMC are met via a thick description that will be established by the researcher (Erlandson et al., 1992). These conditions include, but are not limited to, a low-income country with a growing youth population demographic that is critically important in leading and shaping the future of a nation with a population of more than 39 million 6 people, 60% of which are under the age of 24 (The World Factbook, 2018). Furthermore, results may be generalizable if the conditions of a girl’s empowerment program in a rural setting are similar and present. Additionally, Just Like My Child Foundation indicated that the results of this research will be significant to the future of the Girl Power Project and may lead to curriculum changes that may possibly take into consideration and incorporate the findings. Time and Place of the Study In the fall of 2017, Texas A&M University’s department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications began discussions with JLMC to conduct qualitative research to illuminate and measure the impact that GPP has had and continues to have on community stakeholders of Luweero, Uganda. This research was conducted in June and July of 2018 by a team of four student-researchers that were chosen by the contracted professors of the university’s ALEC department and the Bush School of Government and Public Service. The students carried out the research contract as interns while they lived in the field for eight weeks in Luweero, Uganda. While there, each student conducted personal research used for their academic pursuits: in this case, a master’s thesis. 7 Scope and Limitation This research consisted of more than 60 interviews conducted with key stakeholders with rich knowledge of the research questions posed. These interviews were divided between two stakeholder groups: GPP graduates and GPP facilitators. Limitations are inherent to all qualitative research, including this study. An obvious limitation includes the multiple research objectives the researcher was responsible for accomplishing in the time frame allotted. The top-priority of this high impact experience was to measure the impact that JLMC’s GPP has on the communities where the program is conducted. To address this limitation, the research for this thesis was embedded within the bank of questions of the larger contracted research. This permitted interviewing the same stakeholders for the contracted research as well as this thesis. The outcome of this decision was a thesis strategically crafted so that the questions asked to answer personal research questions closely tied to the questions the same stakeholders were asked in order to satisfy the sponsor’s objectives. Additional limitations include the language barrier. While none of the researchers involved in this study spoke Lugandan or Swahili, JLMC translators were onsite at all times to communicate between researcher and stakeholders, when needed. An additional limitation included analyzing the volume of data collected in the allotted time. Effective time management was paramount to address this limitation. This time management was conducted through the researcher’s fall class schedule, in which five research hours were taken with the thesis chair, three hours dedicated to taking 8 world-renowned qualitative researcher Professor Yvonna Lincoln’s qualitative methods class and the final hour spent in the department’s seminar. This schedule was conducive to analyzing and writing the remaining chapters and finalizing the thesis by January of 2019. Several design limitations were identified in this thesis study that are beyond the control of the researcher in the international field (Andreasen, 2003). As Lincoln described, “naturalistic data processing is far from well developed” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p.354). The first is that there was an inability to control the environment where the data was collected; every time an interview was conducted, the researcher had to “cater to the interviewees’ schedules and availability” (Yin, 2018, p.98). It was and continues to be difficult to select the internal and external environments at each location. For the qualitative interviews, an acknowledgement of limitation in bias must be addressed, because the interviewers were international researchers, i.e., from the United States. Other sources of limitation include: explicitly rural communities, spending only one or two days in the schools out of the maximum of three days of GPP training, visiting a fraction of the schools who have received GPP, not collecting data on whether parents had a child currently participating in GPP, and potential unconscious bias of translator as a representative of the project. Also, a method limitation can derive from coding of data results improperly or labeling participants incorrectly, which may result in an incorrect data analysis. 9 As for practical limitations, one is the accessibility to participants where the team traveled from the United States and spent limited time in the country and in the field. Other limitations included time, money, language barrier, technology, human resources, and having to communicate through a translator. While effort was invested to ensure that best qualitative methods were maintained to enable a sound study was conducted, inherent limitations due to the context of this study limit it from being sound, or “by the book.” One of these limitations the study could not avoid is the inherent language barrier the researcher had to address. Lugandan, one of the more common languages of Uganda, was spoken by every student interviewed, even though some students attempted speaking what little English they have learned in school thus far; but these attempts led to confusing, often nonsensical responses to the questions. Therefore, the JLMC staffers who facilitated the programing served as interpreters for the researchers to use as a part of the data collection instrument. In a perfect research setting, the facilitators of the very program being researched would not be involved in overcoming the language barrier of the participants being interviewed, to avoid the obvious bias in interpretation that may result in inaccurate data being recorded. The measure that should have been used to address this would be the presence and insight of a key informant, a term given to people Marshall describes as local experts who “as a result of their personal skills, or position within a society, are able to provide more information and a deeper insight into what is going on around them” 10 (Marshall, 1996). The use of key informants has been used for these measures to confirm data in multiple studies in the international agriculture field (Kibwika & Semana, 2001; Mangheni et al., 2003; Baker et al., 2006). Unfortunately, the circumstances of this study lacked the resources to hire the services to ensure this measure. To help rectify this imbalance, thick description was captured and multiple member checking moments were used both after every question and as a summary at the conclusion of the interviews to ensure the answers the interpreters provided were as accurate as possible. Budget and Time Table This study was made possible by the opportunity afforded to the researcher to represent Texas A&M University’s Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications by serving as a research intern in a monitoring and evaluation contract procured by Dr. Manuel Piña, Jr. and Dr. Silva Hamie. The goal of this research was to assess and evaluate the impact of GPP at the community level in communities served by schools where the GPP has been implemented. To achieve this goal, JLMC covered a majority of the expenses for the team of research interns and professors to live and collect data in the field from late May to late July before returning to the United States to conduct thorough content analysis and write the report to close the contract. This thesis was possible because the sponsored research donor permitted the study to be dovetailed with the original research mandate the team was given. Additionally, JLMC expressed interest in the findings of the study as they prepare to 11 build onto current programing in the future and seek to know whether agriculture education should be given space within the GPP. This study was proposed in April of 2018, data was collected in June through July of 2018, content analysis and writing took place in the fall of 2018, and defense of the work took place in February of 2019. 12 CHAPTER II Theoretical Framework Rockwell & Bennett’s Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP) served as the framework for this study (Rockwell & Bennett, 2004). TOP is an instrument that “focuses on outcomes in planning, implementing, and evaluating programs” for people to “develop and administer information, education, and training programs on high priority problems or issues in today’s society” (Rockwell & Bennett, 2004). While most often used by Cooperative Extension specialists, the model can and is utilized by different stakeholders who develop a wide variety of programs. Review of Literature The TOP Model consists of a collected order of seven levels designed to guide the development and evaluation of educational programing, as founded in Bennet’s (1974) hierarchy. As the levels vary within the different facets of potential development and evaluation measurements for a program, so too does the degree of complexity required to collect data for the purposes of analysis. TOP is most effective when program planners “consider the outcomes they intend to achieve during each step of the 13 planning process,” as displayed through the mirrored program development and program performance steps found and described in Figure 1 (Harder, 2009). Figure 1. Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP). Reprinted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. Rockwell & Bennett’s instrument has been revised and modified in its more than thirty-year history to highlight and emphasize the importance of considering the intended evaluated objectives when beginning to develop a program. To express its purpose more clearly, educators should begin with the end in mind when they build a program; TOP helps educators accomplish this goal. TOP has been used as a tool for both development and evaluation by a wide variety of experts. These experts generally agree that the development and evaluation service this instrument empowers instructional designers to develop programs that more 14 effectively deliver measurable outcomes that are designed for best possible impact on participants (Powell, Steele & Douglah, 1996; Warner, 2014; Farrington & Feder, 2010). Dart and Davies used TOP as a preliminary case study method to inquire desired program outcomes among key stakeholder groups in developed economies (Dart & Davies, 2003). McDonald, Rogers, and Kefford used TOP to recommend internal evaluation development opportunities to government agencies (McDonald, Rogers, & Kefford, 2003). TOP has been used to form the foundation of a logic model used in monitoring and evaluation approaches to complex project planning (Douthwaite et al., 2008). Braverman and Arnold recommended TOP be utilized for conceptualization of program constructs and outcome (Braverman & Arnold, 2008). Erbaugh and Donnermeyer used TOP to assess extension agent knowledge and training needs in Uganda (Erbaugh and Donnermeyer, 2007). TOP has also been used as a logic model to demonstrate the success of large federal programs (Williams et al., 2009). Furthermore, TOP has also been used to train participants about the functions of programs delivering health and human services (Reed & Brown, 2001). Steimle and Duncan used TOP to evaluate the success of new family life education websites (Steimle & Duncan, 2004). These are a few of many examples in which TOP has been the framework for various and diverse-field studies. The research questions this study seek to answer pertains to the development of a proposed program for an existing non-governmental organization in an international 15 setting. To best address these inquiries, the Targeting Outcomes of Programs Hierarchy serves as the most appropriate framework to achieve the study’s purpose. Specific TOP measures used in this study will be explained in greater detail in Chapter III. 16 CHAPTER III Method and Research Design This study’s research was qualitative in nature, design, and implementation. A case study was conducted using a series of interviews with two key stakeholders: GPP graduates and GPP facilitators of the JLMC team that ensures local program success from their base in Luweero, Uganda. After data was collected, constant-comparative data analysis was utilized to address and answer the research questions. Steps to ensure trustworthiness of the data were taken throughout the process to maintain good social science research practices and standards at all times, and will be explained further in this section. Denzin and Lincoln (2000) describe three conditions to a case study. First, the subject is studied in multiple ways. Second, the findings are composed of intensive detail, richness, depth of observation, and notes. Third, the case is seen in “the big picture” as a whole over an extended period of time. More time provides more context and thus more validity to the case study (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). The study of the potential for an agriculture education component being developed and implemented requires examining this context using the same three aforementioned characteristics, thus making this a case study. Yin’s utilization of the case study method has set a research precedent, for specifically viewing cases as opportunities to examine an extensive variety of incidents and events that are used as education opportunities and teachable moments for the reader 17 (Yin, 2009). While a phenomenology may appear to be a viable method of conducting this study rather than utilizing a case study, the depth of inquiry in the research objectives reveals the nature of this research as a case study. In a phenomenology, the structure of an occurrence or event is being explored (Dooley, 2007). Often times this involves asking key stakeholders to “return to the experience in order to obtain comprehensive descriptions that provide the basis for a reflective structural analysis that portrays the essences of the experience” (Moustakas, p.13, 1994). Describing the essence of JLMC and GPP played a small part of this study. However, the goals of this research require a more intensive description and analysis of the GPP than what the nature of phenomenology offers. to analyze this program’s structure for opportunities to implement an agriculture education component, a more thorough, concentrated system of research is required in order to provide quality social science. this system and intensity of research is truer to the nature of a case study (Merriam, 1998). Furthermore, case studies give the reader the opportunity to vicariously expand their tacit knowledge through the systematic and consistent empirical reporting of the experiences of others (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). These reasons, and more, serve as sound justification of a case study method. Case studies offer multi-perspectival analyses and are an appropriate method for this thesis research (Tellis, 1997). Shinn, Ford, Attaie, and Briers employed a case study method to study post-conflict agriculture development by examining the work of non- governmental organizations in Afghanistan (Shinn, Ford, Attaie & Briers, 2012). Just as 18 Shinn used case study methods to review literature covering building capacity in post- conflict settings (2017), the intent of that proposed research was to both review and explore the potential for capacity for the development of an agricultural education component in a girl’s empowerment program (Shinn, 2017). Smithells used a case study method to research the importance of women in rural development as well as the different types of training required to meet the stakeholders’ needs (Smithells, 1994). Vincent and Torres used a case study method to study the degree of multicultural competence agriculture educators perceive they possessed as well as determine their students’ perceptions of the teachers (Vincent & Torres, 2015). Mukembo, Edwards, Ramsey & Henneberry used a case study to research the career interests of the participants of Young Farmers Clubs in eastern Uganda, providing the beginnings of significant baseline context to help establish the context and culture in nearby central Uganda (Mukembo, Edwards, Ramsey & Henneberry, 2014). David explored a similar research objective to those proposed in this research when he explored the perceptions of farmers that participated in a farmer field school in Cameroon (David, 2007). Similarly, a case study method was used to describe the perceptions of stakeholders that participated in a girl’s empowerment program in central Uganda (David, 2007). Dhindsa and Md-Hamdilah used case study methods to document perceptions of Bruneian lower secondary students, teachers, and parents of agriculture, not dissimilar to the research objectives of this research (Dhindsa & Md-Hamdilah, 2014). Tummons, Langley, Reed and Paul used a case study method to understand the concerns of female preservice 19 teachers in teaching and supervising agriculture mechanics (Tummons, Langley, Reed & Paul, 2017). These examples and more provide a foundation and justification of the utilization a case study method. To evaluate GPP perceptions, a case study design method was implemented that consists of interviews recorded with the interviewee’s permission. These interviewees provided invaluable insight into the perspectives of key stakeholders within a research case study, specifically through stimulating active dialogue about the case under investigation. Respondents representing key demographics integral to answering the research questions were interviewed individually. After acquiring permission to interview and record, an approximately twenty-five-minute interview transpired to answer the interview questions posed, while also allowing participants to answer the questions in ways that illuminated valuable data as a result of keeping the discussion guided versus rigidly structured (Merriam, 1998). As a condition of accepting to partake in the interviews, all participants’ identities were kept anonymous and instead identified in code, marking details of their type of source from which information was gleaned, the type of respondent being interviewed, and the site and date where the interview was conducted (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Observations served as an important role in aiding the researcher’s ability to conceptualize the bigger picture of the impact of the GPP. These observations were 20 accomplished by taking detailed notes of the actions that were not explicitly stated, such as the nonverbal body language of a respondent when asked a possibly challenging question. Other outcomes observations provided to the researcher included but are not limited to indicating and noting motives, interests, and small details that provided more context to the greater and bigger picture of GPP and its potential to develop and incorporate agriculture education components (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). While eight weeks was a shorter than ideal timeframe to conduct this research, credibility was established through prolonged engagement and persistent observation with key stakeholders, namely JLMC team members who are experienced and have worked with GPP graduates and the GPP graduates. Further credibility was established through member checks, in which the researcher either summarized to ensure understanding and consensus is met within the interviews (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Because of the nature of the workload and the limited timeline of the study, verbally summarizing what was discussed and checking to ensure understanding was used for the purposes of this study. Additionally, peer debriefing took place among the researchers to close each day in which observations were reported, questions were both developed and clarified, and ultimately realities began to form through reflections (Erlandson et al., 1992). 21 This qualitative study followed the conceptual framework Dooley summarized for agriculture educators to utilize in order to view agricultural education through a qualitative lens as seen in Figure 2. Figure 2. Viewing Agricultural Education Research Through a Qualitative Lens. Reprinted from “Viewing Agricultural Education Research Through a Qualitative Lens,” by K. Dooley, 2007, Journal of Agricultural Education, Volume 4, page 32. The sample of this study were fifteen GPP facilitators and forty-seven GPP graduates of the JLMC Foundation’s GPP program. . The majority of GPP facilitators were , all were from Uganda, and in the age range of 20 to 40 years of age. All facilitators of the sample had at least one year or more of conducting and facilitating the GPP curriculum across the communities of central 22 Uganda. The sample varied in individuals’ prior experience with the JLMC, as some facilitators were former participants of the program while some were not. All held a higher education degree of some sort, the minimum being a bachelor of science from universities in Uganda. The facilitators are responsible for coordinating multiple visits throughout the time JLMC conducts training within a community at a school. This requires all facilitators to be both talented and dedicated educators to students, as well as willing and able to arrange and sustain building relationships with the schools’ administrators and local community leaders. The more than 45 interviews conducted made GPP graduates the more substantial of either sample. GPP graduates were students who had participated and advanced from the first year of GPP programming, at which point they graduate to the next phase of trainings, when then they are referred to as GPP mentors. At this point, instead of teaching the basic curriculum over a series of days in a week, the GPP graduates meet for one afternoon, once a month, at a time called GPP Club Sessions to receive training and instruction in one specific area of programming and women’s study and practice. Examples of these trainings include what the researcher witnessed for GPP Club Sessions: self-defense from the local police, financial literacy training from the GPP facilitators, and income-generating opportunities. The average age of the GPP graduate interviewee was between 13 and 15 years of age. As the team of Texas A&M University researchers and professors prepared to go to Uganda for the monitoring and evaluation research already contracted by JLMC, two additional theses research 23 proposals were presented and dovetailed into the contracted evaluation research to afford the student researchers the opportunity to join the opportunity to conduct international research in a developing country. As a part of the preparation for this evaluation research, all research proposals and descriptions were compiled and combined to be sent to and reviewed by the Institutional Review Board of Texas A&M University for any revisions or clarifications that could be made or offered. IRB reviewed all proposals and determined IRB approval was not required to gauge the perceptions of people, therefore approving the interviewing of the GPP graduate sample. The IRB letter accompanying this study can be found in the appendix. The study population these two stakeholder groups represent is a central Ugandan community of people who are preparing for or teaching the students preparing to soon join the community in which they live as young adults who have the potential to be leaders, more confident to pursue advancement and opportunity for themselves, and ideally be more empowered than the generations past of women who experienced less opportunity. The population can also be described as native men and women who are investing in their communities of central rural Uganda through the teaching and empowering of young women. Subject Selection Interview samplings relied on purposive samplings at school sites that were chosen by the GPP facilitators. The GPP facilitators of the chosen schools were asked to identify three to four GPP graduates who would be willing to be interviewed for the 24 study. The GPP facilitators would then return to their classroom of students with whom they would have built relatively well-established rapport with the student group, and based off their discernment, would ask and collect the students for the interviews. This is an important limitation that should be noted in this study’s context. A major disadvantage of this sampling method is the bias of the GPP facilitator organizing interviews of students that they often knew would be confident and willing to be interviewed by the researcher for this study. However, while this limitation should be noted, it was one of the many matters of the nature of the development research conducted that was out of the hands of control of the researcher and team conducting the research. The interviewing of the GPP facilitators was conducted through convenience sampling. Interviews were often conducted with the facilitators on Mondays of every week. At this time, the entire JLMC staff was together to meet and prepare for the upcoming programing across the region for which they would divide into smaller teams to conduct project activities. Between meetings and the logistics organizing, they would agree to sit for an interview that will be discussed in further detail later in this chapter. Interviews with JLMC staff also transpired in slow times between sessions at the many school sites at which the researchers shadowed the JLMC staff and GPP facilitators and advocates. 25 Instrumentation TOP is a complex hierarchy and increases in complexity as educators utilize more levels in search of effective development and evaluation of programs. The first four steps of the TOP hierarchy pertain to this program development, specifically the needs assessment required and specified by the instrument, as seen in Figure 3. Figure 3. TOP Program Development. Reprinted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. TOP designates that the first three levels to be used in effective assessment are SEE conditions, practices, and KASA. SEE refers to the social, economic, and environmental conditions of a community that stand to benefit both privately and publicly. Data used to determine SEE conditions range from objective indicators such as life expectancies and air quality to subjective indicators like public satisfaction with the aforementioned topics. 26 Practices are behaviors, procedures, or actions that influence SEE conditions. Practices can be determined through external observation of a sample’s adoption and use of recommended practices and technologies or reports of program participants regarding their adoption and use of recommended practices and technologies. KASA refers to knowledge, attitude, skills, and aspirations that affect the acceptance of practices and technologies in order to achieve targeted goals and objectives. Knowledge is equated to what information is learned or instruction is recognized. Attitudes pertains to individuals' “beliefs, opinions, feelings, or perspectives” (Rockwell & Bennett, 2004). Skills is defined as the ability, both mentally and physically, to use “new or alternative practices” (Rockwell & Bennett, 2004). Aspirations refers to ambitions. While a majority of interview questions asked of respondents concerned the contextual factors of TOP (that is, SEE, Practices, and KASA), three interview questions in the instrument were designed specifically to measure the feasibility of the proposed program based on the respondents’ perceptions of the resources required for the proposed program’s success, as explained in figure 4. The TOP levels measured were Reactions and Resources, as seen in Figure 4. 27 Figure 4. Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP). Reprinted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP),” by Bennett, C. and Rockwell, K., 1995. Retrieved from: http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html. Reactions mirror the respondents’ level and degree of positive or negative interest in the topics being proposed. Reactions can be influenced by multiple experiences and sources and these can be influenced by corresponding activities coordinated by different groups and agencies. Resources are the contributions required to plan and implement programs. These resources can include, but are not limited to time, money, and staff. Resources are best reported through staff reports of expected expenses to be incurred to accomplish proposed program goals. Because this study seeks to explore the feasibility of a program not yet developed, it would not be possible to measure the performance of the program. Instead, this study used the program development outlet offered through TOP. Specifically, the 28 focus of this study was rooted in the needs and opportunities assessment that TOP details for effective programming. Rockwell & Bennett argue effective needs assessment is derived from two fundamental approaches: the social indicators approach and the self- report approach (Rockwell & Bennett, 2004). The social indicators approach relies on objective data points that are indicative to a community’s livelihood or lack thereof, such as a census’ infant mortality rates, household income levels, tests conducted on water safety, and others. While some sources can provide these examples and in some cases more, this study mainly relied on the second TOP needs assessment method, the self-report approach. The self-report approach asserts that stakeholders of a community best understand their individual needs and their families, and therefore deeply understand the needs of the community at large. In this study, the self-reported needs assessments approach took shape through more than 60 interviews conducted with two key stakeholder groups: GPP facilitators who work throughout the communities of the JLMC’s reach and intimately understand each one, and the GPP students who have graduated from the program and are now known as GPP mentors. 29 Using the self-report approach to verify subjective indicators as described by respondents interviewed through TOP led to the coupling of existing interview questions with the program development arm of the hierarchy, as can be seen in Table 1. Table 1. TOP Key Subjective Indicators with Corresponding Interview Questions. Adapted from “Targeting Outcomes of Programs: A Hierarchy for Targeting Outcomes and Evaluating their Achievement,” by Rockwell, K., and C. Bennett., 2004., Paper 48, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, http:// digitalcommons.unl.edu/aglecfacpub/48 30 From the interviews questions and the TOP framework, the questions listed in table 1 were asked of the two stakeholder groups (GPP graduates questions in red text, GPP facilitators’ questions in black text). Responses to these questions will be reported in chapter 4 of this study. Data Collection Procedures Data was collected through interviews as well as observations and additional unobtrusive measures. This instrument’s validity relied on detailed field notes documenting direct observations and collecting a variety of information from different perspectives (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994; Moustakas, 1994). Quotations were used to represent the interviewees and other participants’ viewpoints, and were appropriate in most all settings while collecting data (Moustakas, 1994). Furthermore, daily journal entries approximating no more than one page were made to help ensure richness of detail was collected, as well as begin to build a thick description of the environment (Erlandson et al., 1993). Additional unobtrusive data measures included but were not limited to documents and other archival data that already existed (Dooley, 2007). In the fall of 2017, Texas A&M University developed a 109 item-questionnaire that was implemented by the JLMC in-country team through the Spring that measured demographics, life skills, the ability to build healthy relationships, bodies, minds, and leadership skills of established and predetermined stakeholders of Luweero. These questionnaires were administered to the rural Ugandan stakeholders by the JLMC staff prior to the Texas 31 A&M University research team’s arrival, and therefore were considered archival data. These data helped establish more context in how the community has been impacted by the GPP and the impact the program has had on their perceptions of girl’s empowerment, and thus helped provide and add to a thick description of this case study. Data Analysis Procedures As the interviews were conducted, transcribed, coded, and analyzed to gain insight into trends, outliers, and contradictions. Constant comparative data analysis was implemented to analyze the data collected (Glaser, 1965). Open coding was conducted on the transcribed interviews to look for “indicators consisting of behavioral actions and events, observed and described in documents and in the words of the interviewees” in order to form categories (Tesch, 1990, p. 85). After open coding, axial coding was conducted that consisted of analysis that builds “cumulative knowledge about relationships between that category and other categories and subcategories” (Tesch, p. 86). After these two methods were carried out, selective coding created core categories or themes used to build knowledge and give the researcher the ability to answer the research questions and objectives posed. This will be described in more detail in chapters IV and V. 32 CHAPTER IV Analysis of Data Over the course of two months conducting field research in the Luweero, Nakasongola and Kiboga districts of central Uganda, over 60 interviews were conducted from GPP graduates. What have you learned through the girl power project? The most common response when posed the question, "what did you learn in the Girl Power Project," was personal confidence, which ranked number one at 24% (n=143). Participants explained that before the GPP, they were generally shy in front of adults, male classmates, and even other girls they did not know well. But, because of the GPP, they reported becoming assertive when speaking publicly or protecting themselves from harassment. With this confidence they were empowered to develop for themselves, students also reported they were now living without being afraid of their teachers, and as a result of this confidence, they speak more clearly and make consistent, unbroken eye contact with teachers, head teachers, and other authority figures in their lives. Participants also noted this confidence has empowered them to respond when boys confront them in inappropriate manners, be it at school, in the community, or at home. The second most common response to being asked what students learned in GPP at (n=143) 16% was receiving education about practices female students should actively participate in or change about their daily practices, such as the importance of staying in school, civic education of her local community, and self-care measures like menstruation 33 cycles and the need for personal hygiene. Students often explained that as a result of the GPP, they now understand and value the importance of staying in school to ensure they are prepared for the most personal success possible when they pursue more opportunities in the future, whether those opportunities be higher education or other. A part of this response theme was also the understanding and debunking myths students had regarding the female body, which was covered through entire GPP sessions concerning female health. Because of these sessions, students reported they now possessed the faculty to care for their menstruation, to debunk stigma and misconceptions that are commonly spread by fellow girls and other stakeholders, and to not be ashamed or afraid of female bodily changes. Students also reported understanding the possibility of pursuing higher education opportunities. They explained in interviews that before GPP, they never thought of additional education as a possibility, nor did they know where or how to begin such a process, or even possessing the knowledge to understand college or university was a possibility. After GPP, they reported knowing all of these matters and more. Students sometimes explained their career aspirations of being a teacher or doctor, and more importantly, displayed the critical thinking and understanding that to obtain these professions one day, they have to commit to doing their best in school today. Students also noted they understand more about how their local government works because of the GPP. When explaining what they meant by this newfound civic knowledge, they elaborated by explaining they specifically know where to go and who 34 to tell in cases of needing and seeking protection, rectifying sexual harassment and abuse, domestic disputes in which the student is suffering and wants to affect change for herself, or protecting her family members and friends. The third most commonly referenced theme of response at (n=143) 11% pertained to what the girls gained in the form of sexual protection, wellbeing knowledge and skills, such as knowing the difference between a good personal touch and bad personal touch on a girl's body from others, knowing the safe and unsafe areas of town and how to navigate with other girls to avoid potentially dangerous adult, and, ultimately, how to defend one's self from would-be attackers. When students reported this, they explained they know because of GPP how to protect their body from bad touches. They elaborated on this belief by explaining the reason some touches are good and some touches are bad is that their bodies are both special and their own; the individual student is ultimately the deciding judge who controls her body, and has every right to protest, deny or consent to what happens to her. Students also reported that because of the GPP, they now know to not be close to any man ever, as every man is a potential rapist in their eyes. In addition to this protection that GPP teaches the students, participants also noted they now know if they are sexually violated, it is better to report the perpetrator to the authorities rather than avoid reporting. Furthermore, the sexual protection curriculum also led participants to reporting they now know where safe and unsafe areas of town to 35 walk are, as well as not to walk alone by themselves, but rather in groups no smaller than two, but preferably three or more. This knowledge of safe and unsafe places to walk at night is made possible through the JLMC mapping exercise, in which JLMC staffers prepare a community, through dialogue, about what to expect when GPP is preparing to take place by sensitizing the community to the goals or GPP, as well as asking them to map out as a community where girls should and should not walk to safely travel and commute across the community. Because of this collaboration, participants explained in interviews they use this map every day in their walk to and from school and elsewhere. It should be noted that the most diverse, significant responses derived from this question, in which 12 unique and individual themes were noted in the response, more than any other answer list of the stakeholder, thus explaining the seeming low percentages making up the largest responses, statistically. Eight percent (8%) (n=143) of students’ responses explained in interviews as a result of their GPP training that they now know how to be a mentor to other girls in the community. Mentorship is both a concept that is taught throughout the GPP, as well as the title bestowed upon participants once they complete the three-day programming, or “graduate” from the GPP. Participants who listed mentorship often times explained how they now know the value of and how to become a good example for others to look up to. In addition to this importance of leading as a good example, students also explained how 36 the GPP taught them that being a good example means supporting, protecting, and empowering other girls around them, as well as displaying an uncharacteristically mature depth of thought to the importance of the basis of women empowerment theory. Eight percent (8%) (n=143) of students listed the merits and practices of good behavior as something important they learned about through the GPP. What participants meant by “good” behavior was wide-ranging in scope what participants meant by “good” behavior. Students reported good behavior as having respect for all people, what her responsibilities are at home and beyond and that she should fulfill those responsibilities to the best of her ability, and behaving in a stricter manner as opposed to how they reported behaving in the past. Students also reported greeting other girls “with feelings,” as opposed to being mean and unfriendly to girls they see. Participants also described good self-esteem as a quality they gained because of the GPP. Six percent (6%) (n=143) of responses given by students indicated they specifically learned of what staying safe in the community looks like for themselves and other girls. These answers were diverse in scope, ranging from safety, avoiding moving at night, to understanding the difference between effective parenting that disciplines and children abuse, as well as where to go and who to refer to when she or others are being abused. This also was underscored by participants stating that because of the GPP, they know to trust the police and go to them with problems they are having. This can reasonably be associated with a part of the GPP curriculum in which the students of the sessions meet the local policeman or policewoman who heads the Family and Protection 37 Unit of the community and district. These authority units specialize in and oversee all matters pertaining to the protection and support of a good home life for all families. Students reported in interviews meeting these authority figures helped them know where to turn if they ever need help with problems pertaining to abuse or otherwise. Five percent (5%) (n=143) of students’ responses indicated they are more aware of their rights as children as a result of the GPP. This subset of the sample indicated more often than any of the answers the awareness that children have rights, which is taught to them through the curriculum. Students reported they now know they have the right to have a name, or to be able to play instead of working chores around the house every day, or not to participate in either arranged or child marriage. Four percent (4%) (n=143) of students’ responses indicated specifically they are more aware of what empowerment is, what empowerment looks like in a girl’s life, and that girls deserve more empowerment, brought about by the ways and decisions a girl can make to affect that change and the expectation she should hold her community to in order to meet that standard and achieve aforementioned change. Four percent (4%) (n=143) of students’ interviews reflected learning about and being encouraged to commit to living in abstinence. Students reported they know that as a result of GPP, abstinence is a way to guarantee never being pregnant while young and unmarried. A few of these students indicated they understand the importance of being safe to avoid pregnancy, regardless of choosing abstinence or not. It should be noted that 38 as a part of the GPP’s introduction to a community, the stakeholders of the community have some level of input into what is taught to the students, of which sexual education is often the most concerning topic. The culture of rural central Uganda is considered more conservative than more progressive areas of the nation, such as near the capital city Kampala. This conservatism is exemplified through the GPP being barred from teaching any form of sexual education that does not treat and address abstinence as the sole panacea of the risks and dangers of sex. Therefore, it is unclear where some of the students discerned abstinence is not the only option when discussing sexual protection and wellness. Four percent (4%) (n=143) of responses given in interviews reflected they learned from the GPP the importance of and ability to discern between good and bad peer pressure from others, the benefits and appropriateness of good peer pressure, as well as different methods to deflect or abstain from bad peer pressure. Three percent (3%) (n=143) of participants indicated the GPP taught them effective communication skills, from understanding the responsibility to share what they have learned, possessing the confidence and ability to carry out the advocacy they were taught about in the program, and the different methods that most clearly communicate the message a student may hope to deliver. Two percent (2% (n=143) of answers given in interviews indicated GPP has taught them leadership skills and developed their leadership potential. This leadership 39 was described by different participants in a multifaceted manner, between learning how leaders communicate effectively, the importance of having the personal empowerment and confidence to believe in themselves as leaders, and the responsibility both to advocate their newfound knowledge with their newfound leadership position they develop into. How do you feel about your agricultural skills- growing vegetables, fattening animals, etc.? When asked to describe how graduates of the empowerment program feel about their proficiency in agricultural skills, nearly half (n=110, 47%) of the responses given by students listed their high confidence in their smallholder farming abilities. The evidence for this assertion is that the students in nearly every interview listing the different crops and animals they had already raised and reared for their families in their homes. Students indicated in interviews they are already growing or have grown at some point in their past a variety of crops, from potatoes, cassava, beans, maize and corn, as well as raising livestock, or “rearing animals” as they commonly described their animal husbandry experience. Often husbandry examples listed in interviews included raising goats, hens, cows, and other animals their families use for food or as a source of income. Students also described their understanding and appreciation for the importance agriculture plays in providing for her and her family’s basic needs. Participants defined agriculture as a livelihood by describing experiences in which when their families lacked the money for fish and meat, they relied on the vegetables they grew to provide them 40 sustenance. In some cases, students described life lessons their parents had taught them growing up, such as “if you do not grow your own food, you do not eat.” Still others perceived agriculture as an evergreen skill that, regardless of what profession she pursues, she will still be able to improve their lives through the proper utilization of small holder agriculture techniques. Dwarfed in comparison was the second most-common response of the students, in which (n=110) 21% of interview answers listed their confidence in their agricultural faculty by listing income-centered responses, such as selling their crops for money to pay school fees and save for their future. Students often connected the income generation potential agriculture holds with the prospect to use said income to pay for school fees and buy school supplies for herself and her family, as well as save money for future higher education endeavors. Other students tied the potential for income generation with their perception of their home country of Uganda possessing endless land and fertile soil from which they expand operations to plant more crops, rear and sell more animals, and exponentially expand their future income. Other students connected this visionary style of thinking by describing the income generation gained through agriculture would incentivize her to purchase land for herself, while others saw the importance of land through the lenses of them inheriting their parents’ land one day with which they would likely grow and raise food for consumption and market. The third most common response for students was (n=110) 13% of interview items simply claiming they feel confident in their agricultural ability, without providing 41 any follow-up, often times unable to think of reasoning when asked for more context from the interviewers. Students described feeling good about it, being confident in her ability to raise food, and in some cases expressing the want and desire to pursue agriculture in higher education institutions such as universities and technical schools. Students were hard-pressed to provide more context to these answers, and often kept responses short and lacking depth of context. This can potentially serve as an example of the classroom structure that was observed by the researchers; Ugandan students are not often pressed to think critically, but rather to respond with the answer, and move on. Five percent (5%) (n=110) of students’ responses indicated they did not feel good at all about their agriculture capacity, citing they did not have the agriculture skills to feel confident in any venture involving raising or growing food. Students specifically explained they felt they lacked both the knowledge and skills to effectively participate and engage in agricultural practices. Five percent (5%) (n=110) of students’ answers indicated they believe agriculture is good, or important, but did not indicate whether or not they personally have agriculture skills or define their confidence levels with such skills. Four percent (4%) (n=110) of students’ responses noted whether or not they have agriculture skills and confidence, they desire to learn more about agriculture, and how they could use this knowledge to invest in themselves and others. Some used this 42 question as a platform to begin envisioning what higher education may empower them to do in terms of developing an agribusiness and other income generation prospects. If given the choice, would you choose a career in agriculture? Why or why not? The next interview question posed to GPP graduates asked whether they wanted to pursue agriculture as a career. Responses to this prompt exemplifies the duality of the students' reasoning and desire for wanting agricultural education. The most common response at 40% (n=72) listed that they wanted to pursue agriculture as a job to earn income for themselves. Many students perceive agricultural pursuits as a career as an excellent way to earn income for themselves through seeing other people in her community doing well and earning money for themselves and their families. Students also noted their admiration for successful agrimarketing skills they witness in their village’s communities, and expressed they would want to become agrimarketers themselves as well. Students also noted which facets of agriculture they would want to pursue for a career, the consensus being cow-calf operations are perceived as the most lucrative for them to pursue. Participants also noted their desire to purse agriculture for income potential not only for the sake of short-term income, but also in order to invest their profits into their long-term efforts, such as buying more inputs, setting up infrastructure and ultimately buying more land to expand production. Some participants noted they would want to be engaged in agriculture for income potential, but specifically through the lens of using agriculture as a supplementary source 43 of income in addition to what the participants would hope to be their main source of income providing profession, such as a teacher. The second most common response was halved at 19% (n=72) , in which students wanted to become career agriculturists because they wanted to feed themselves, their friends, and most importantly their families. This commitment to livelihood was the most common response in questions past, but was second-most important for students when asked why they would like to become agriculturists in this question. Students indicated their desire to feed themselves today, as well their family of which they are a member, but also, they think long-term about the day they too will be raising and supporting a family. The students want to pursue agriculture as a career today so to provide for their family tomorrow. Even still, some participants expressed concerns that agriculture as a career could help end hunger and suffering they noticed in their communities. Third-most common response at 16% (n=72) by students was that they did not want to have a career in agriculture due to their desire to pursue other professions, such as doctor, teacher, or endearingly GPP facilitator. This response is unsurprising from the perspective of the researcher-instrument, as the GPP curriculum heavily focuses on the potential for these young girls to pursue all sorts of career paths, and often times pushes them towards higher-education and higher-paying jobs. Students expressed their desire to one day become doctors, hair dressers, teachers, accountants, police officers, GPP facilitators, and more, and therefore did not foresee a future in which they would be 44 engaged or interested in engaging in agriculture as a career. For those that specified, in almost every instance they summarized their preferred professions earn more money than farming, and therefore are not interested. The exception to this finding is the students who indicated their desire to be a GPP facilitator, in which case often times they were merely passionate about their experiences with the program and want to replicate their experiences for other students after them. Seven percent (7%) (n=72) expressed their passion and love for agriculture, either by simply expressing the statement, “I love agriculture,” or in some cases talking about what particular plans they envision themselves pursuing in agriculture, such as helping sick animals, being a specialist in varieties of coffee seedlings, or in one case to one day be the best farmer in Uganda. Six percent (6%) (n=72) of students’ specified they did not like the work, ranging from the financial risk farming poses, a general dislike of the labor it requires, feeling as if people who farm are not educated, or in one case a girl being too afraid of caterpillars to pursue the field. Four percent (4%) (n=72) of students responded to the question by informing the interviewer their desire to pursue higher education opportunities within the field of agriculture, in some cases for the purposes of teaching others about agriculture, and in some cases solely for the sake of developing their knowledge and skills. 45 Two percent (2%) (n=72) of participants indicated they do not want to pursue agriculture themselves, but have friends who are interested in becoming engaged in the field for a job and career. What more would you like to be done in the girl power project? Why? When asked what more respondents would like to see done in GPP, responses indicated the most commonly-requested improvement was more trainings at 39% (n=61). More trainings spanned many different areas, such as GPP trainings for parents, training the boys the same three days as the girls instead of the one the boys receive due to budgetary constraints, and others. Though the topics may be different, the theme that connects them together is the universal request that JLMC reach farther into their schools, homes, and communities. The participants most often specified they wanted GPP and JLMC to specifically train the people around them they know in similar, yet specific topic areas. For instance, students requested that the parents should be trained and educated on the importance of helping their daughters avoid early pregnancy, or the importance of sending their children to school, and other trainings. The participants indicated within this answer they also would like to see GPP be conducted for all girls in the community, not just those of their school. Other specified training areas include leadership development, self-defense skills, and the process of them to becoming GPP staff and facilitators, as well as agricultural trainings that train them how to rear animals and operate smallholder farms. 46 Following the request for more trainings were relatively low-reported requests, the second-most at 15% (n=61) being financial assistance for the girls, almost uniformly specified in the form of JLMC paying for participants’ school fees. The students expanded on this theme by explaining the different ways they sought this financial assistance, whether through GPP helping or covering the school fees because parents may not be able to pay the school. They also suggested offering more scholarships for girls to attend GPP Camp, a sleep-away weekend conference for selected girls of GPP who showed promise, attentiveness and confidence who were then elected to go cost- free to the event for additional empowerment sessions and trainings. Students also expounded on this theme by specifying GPP should financially back the construction of additional buildings specifically for girls to utilize, whether the building be a boarding school so the girls do not risk being assaulted on their daily walking commute to and from school or a separate classroom dedicated for the express purpose of training girls more thoroughly in GPP and additional women’s empowerment curriculum. Third-most asserted at 13% (n=61) were particular curricular objective changes. This theme’s arrangement of responses generally specified their perceived need to teach lesson plans such as how to more thoroughly avoid pregnancy, how to help keep law and order, and how to behave better than other people around her, to more philosophical and emotional training, such as what it means to live life with humility, how to practice self- control, and discuss what it means to truly help children in need. 47 Eight percent 8% (n=61) of participants responses were merely stating they do not know what they would like to have done, or at least did not specify in the interview. Generally, it was noted by the interviewer that the participant was seeking to end the interview as quickly as possible, though some girls did display critical thought and ultimately surmised they had no thoughts or ideas in which GPP could improve. Seven percent (7%) (n=61) of student responses indicated the desire to be taught hands-on vocational training that they perceive as an opportunity for the students to be empowered to find jobs after school, and in some cases agricultural practices and other skills that could be used as a function of practicality. Another seven percent (7%) (n=61) of responses made unanimously clear the need to include the boys of the school and community to be trained more than they currently are (boys receive one day of training to the girls’ three), in order to ensure the safety and future of the girls’ by spreading the knowledge, information, and skills and ultimately spreading the onus of protecting women’s’ and girls’ rights to other key stakeholder groups responsible for achieving this objective in any given community. Five percent (5%) (n=61) 5% of student responses indicated the desire to be trained how to become a fellow GPP facilitator and work as a job for JLMC. Students often noted they would prefer that the GPP facilitators be their school teachers every day because of how much love and admiration they have for them. 48 Three percent (3%) (n=61) of students expressed their desire for GPP to begin providing medical assistance and healthcare to students, specifically those that become pregnant at a young age or have been defiled and sexually assaulted. Should agriculture education be a part of the girl power project? Why or why not? The final question posed to GPP graduates asked them to consider all previous interview items, and to answer and explain whether they believe agricultural education should be a part of the GPP. Nearly half of the students at (n=72) 47% enthusiastically explained yes, they would like to see agriculture education be taught to them, solely because the students can improve their personal and family's lives if they learn to grow better fruits and vegetables, and rear animals. Further explanation to this theme is the value of learning life skills, such as the value of hard work taught through manual labor, generally referred to as “digging.” Self-sufficiency was another reason mentioned by students as why agriculture education should be taught in the GPP; participants want for future students and themselves the ability to provide for their basic needs, and once the sufficiency is established, more. Other responses noted many students of the sample already participate in farming practices, yet do not carry out the practice effectively, and thus could farm “better” should agriculture education be taught. Still other responses highlighted learning agriculture education would provide an alternative lens to occupy students while also keeping them from getting into trouble, such as through stealing. 49 Second-most responded at (n=72) 18% was specifying agriculture should be taught to the students in order to learn more for the sake of learning. According to student responses, learning agriculture would be a welcome facet of GPP simply because students did not know and would be eager to learn for themselves. Interview responses indicate students believe if they receive agriculture education, the possibility of learning other life skills could be more easily taught in real-world context, such as the process of buying land or how to sustain plant life, but for a living. Others saw agriculture education as an opportunity to invest in students who would hopefully reapply the newly-gained education by reinvesting into their school that provided them the opportunity to experience the program themselves in the past. The third most common response was not wanting agriculture education to be a part of GPP (n=72) 16% because it would take opportunities away for girls to learn about protecting themselves, that they could learn more agriculture education elsewhere, and a host of other reasons. These other reasons relate to students being able to learn agriculture techniques in a college or university, and therefore shouldn’t concern themselves with learning farming techniques right now. Many interviews revealed the concern that if agriculture education, smallholder farmer techniques and other agricultural pursuit were to be taught in GPP’s allotted time, it would take time away from the social survival skills participants need, and would ultimately hurt girls in GPP more than help them. Some feared teaching agriculture will discourage girls from pursuing jobs like doctors and lawyers instead of what they perceive as a farmer, which 50 some participant responses indicate the perception of a job for the disabled. Some interviews indicated expanding GPP would be good, except for the inclusion and mixing of the boys, of which some participants worried would dilute the content the girls were originally for anyway. Fifteen percent (15%) (n=72) of interview responses reflected the primary reason agriculture education should be taught is for the potential practicing the skill has for income generation. Students recognize a lack of income to pay school fees is a primary reason girls drop out in their schools and across communities; student responses often explained regardless of where in life girls their age wanted to go and what education level they aspired to achieve, agriculture faculty could enhance their wellbeing, and for that reason they wanted to see agriculture education as a part of future curriculums. Ultimately, out of the selected sample of 46 students, 38 specified they wanted agriculture education as a part of the GPP, while eight participants did not want agriculture education to take root in any future GPP training. What was the reasoning behind how the program objectives for the GPP curriculum were written? The facilitators of the GPP were interviewed as the second stakeholder group in this study to learn the opinions, perspectives, and experiences of the people who impact theses students’ lives. The interview began by asking for the facilitators to explain the reasoning behind the curriculum objectives of the GPP, to which they respondents listed 51 a variety of responses, mostly centered around listing the mission statement of the foundation and how the program achieves those. This is demonstrated by the number one response at (n=65) 14% being to end early pregnancy. The facets of this most common response can be broken down by the participants by what the founder always intended when she began the program. Whether they noted in interview intent was to end all young pregnancies across central Uganda, or to simply to delay inevitable child birth, the most noted intent of the GPP was and is to positively affect early pregnancy across communities. It should be noted the facilitator’s lists 16 district themes in the total responses, the most of either stakeholder group, when considering the seemingly low percentage of the most commonly referred- to answer. Second most referred to in their responses was that GPP exists and is written to empower women, at 12%. 12% (n=65) of responses listed the biggest reason GPP exists is to empower women. Responses in this theme vary to what extent and scope empowerment they request. However, participants noted the overall vision of GPP is for one million girls to be empowered, as set forth by the founder. Empowerment is also prioritized through teaching students the knowledge they have a say in the family matters that affects their lives instead of solely the parents, and in most cases, the father of the family. Still other participants noted Girl Power empowers women for the ultimate goal of staying in school in order to accomplish her dreams. 52 Eleven percent (11%) (n=65) of responses given by participants in interviews reported the reason GPP’s curriculum is written as it stands today is to end violence in the community, primarily the violence that afflicts girls. Interview responses varied in how this was addressed, such as empowering girls with the knowledge and skills to report violence through the proper channels to the appropriate stakeholders and authorities should it affect them, to the physical ability to repel and defend themselves against potential physical threats and acts of violence. Interview respondents also explained the GPP also is written to teach girls the ability to distinguish the different types of violence they could experience that goes beyond physical violence. Nine percent (9%) (n=65) of GPP facilitators explained the purpose of the curriculum objectives was to ensure girls remained in school and not to succumb to outside circumstance and pressures to drop out of school early. A decrease in school dropouts of the GPP students is the primary criterion noted by participants in interviews in which they measure this objective. Eight percent (8%) (n=65) of responses given by participants indicated the Girl Power existed to end forced marriage among young girls of the school and community. It should be noted this theme of responses differs from the aforementioned early pregnancy theme; early pregnancy generally implied the girl was defiled, sexually harassed, or had premarital sex at a young age. Ending forced marriage generally implied the arrangement between families to pair their young daughter with a usually older man, sometimes in exchange for goods or services, sometimes as a way of 53 rectifying a disagreement or act of wrongdoing transpired by one of the parties, and in some cases solve the problem of a sexual harassment that ended in childhood pregnancy to begin with. Six percent (6%) (n=65) of responses given by participants noted the main reason the GPP was designed in its curriculum was to help girls achieve their dreams. This was the sole response of every response in this theme, and is a phrase found on JLMC’s website, banners, and posters in the in-country office. Another 6% (n=65) of responses highlighted the GPP exists for the purpose of preparing the participants for life’s challenges they can expect in their near future. Many respondents noted in interview the reality that girls in central Uganda have to learn to address serious life challenges much sooner than girls the same age in other countries would not be required to address for another 10 years, such as early marriages, fending off acts of sexual harassment and assault, as well as to prepare them for other inevitable challenges they may not otherwise be prepared for, such as experiencing puberty in the near future. Five percent (5%) (n=65) of responses noted the curriculum and purpose of GPP was to align with the overall mission with the Just Like My Child Foundation, which is “to empower vulnerable adolescent girls by enabling them to create healthy, self- sustaining families who prosper without further aid.” 54 An additional 5% (n=65) of the interviews revealed the curriculum is designed to affect general cultural change in the communities of central Uganda in which GPP is conducted, be it from specifically to sensitizing the communities of children’s rights or in one case the respondent seeing Girl Power as the potential tipping point to prompt massive change across the country. Still another 5% (n=65) of responses highlighted the purpose of the curriculum of GPP was to develop and heighten self-awareness within the students of the program, so to allow them to understand themselves better, to know and recognize different perspectives they may have, and in doing so, heighten their maturity. Similar to the theme of self-awareness was the 5% (n=65) of responses that indicated the purpose and curricular objectives of GPP was to develop girls’ self- confidence and self-esteem. Five percent (5%) (n=65) more clarified regardless of what was taught, the purpose of the GPP was written to be tailored to the wants and needs of the individual communities before any instruction transpires. These responses refer to the preliminary meeting JLMC and GPP conducts with a gathering of the community to orient and familiarize both stakeholder groups with each other. A part of this meeting is both to give an overview of the curriculum design, the scope of what to expect from Girl Power being taught in a community, and most critically, the “covenant” agreement the nonprofit will make with the community before teaching in-class; if the community 55 doesn’t agree, GPP will not come to the school. This theme connects with the overall goal of the program to work and specialize in the work as according to the wants and needs of the community. Three percent (3%) (n=65) of responses noted Girl Power exists to instill altruistic characteristics in a girl who carries admirable qualities with her upon GPP graduation, while another 3% (n=65) of interview answers described Girl Power as designed to develop a girl’s social capital. How do you teach the GPP curriculum? When asked to explain how the facilitators teach the GPP curriculum, 20% (n=70) of responses given by facilitators indicated they did not deviate from the curriculum’s instruction, and taught the way they were told to teach; the facilitators follow and teach the lesson plan in the manner the lesson plan is written. This was not the sole response to this question, as 13% (n=70) of responses given by participants explained they practice autonomy in their teaching style of the curriculum. Respondents explained they were innovative, creative, and eager to break students into small groups to help explain and explore topics more thoroughly, will sometimes change the direction of the lesson plan to ensure the audience of students learns in a manner best suited for them, or teach objectives of curriculum through different experiential learning experiences, such as student skits. Some respondents also reported the guide actually encourages autonomy in all teaching styles, somewhat 56 contradicting prior interview responses explaining the staff teaches how the guide instructs them to teach. An additional 13% (n=70) of responses to this question identified and explained the particular methods facilitators teach and guide the learning of the GPP curriculum. Facilitators explained they were participative in their teaching style, they speak loudly and confidently when addressing the students in the classroom, offer grace and constructive criticism when GPP students make mistakes or misbehave, or in some cases going out of their way to discuss the advantages as well as counterpoints of the what students offer in class for answers to questions, prompts, and other curriculum experiences. Ten percent (10%) (n=70) of responses within the interview thoroughly explained the GPP curriculum and process of how schools are screened, selected and ultimately implemented within the Girl Power Program. The intent of this question was to push them to think critically about their teaching style and pedagogy, which they often did, but in this case reported seemingly everything they knew about the process of the GPP. This can be due to the education system of Uganda very rarely spurring students and therefore adults of the system to think critically, but more likely due in part to the error of the researcher-instrument not finding a better way to phrase and frame the intent of the question. This theme also corresponds with the experiences of the research team in the field conducting monitoring and evaluation research for JLMC in addition to this study; often times, respondents who spoke English instead of Lugandan in interview 57 would understand only key words of the question asked of them, and sometimes misunderstand the intent of the question, thus leading to a somewhat nonsensical and certainly outlier answer. These are just a few of the potential reasons this theme was present in the findings and analysis. Nevertheless, the staff explained the multiple stages and intricacies of how GPP is conducted, yet did not address how they personally taught the curriculum. Nine percent (9%) (n=70) of the responses given by facilitators centered on processing students’ answers offered in class in order to seek more context and explanation from students’ initial answers. Examples of this came from interviewers explaining they prompt students to elaborate, put into context, and in some cases even defend answers they offer in class sessions that call for their response on any given topic. Thirdly most listed was the 14% of responses that responded they simply do not stray from what the curriculum tells them to teach and how they suggest to teach it. An additional 9% (n=70) of answers given in interviews centered on the importance facilitators place in reading and adjusting to their particular audience of students. Facilitators described watching the students’ body language, seeking to understand how the students think and feel about the content being taught at any given point in a session. Facilitators were quick in this theme to address the fact that the curriculum does not always meet the audience’s needs and expectations to achieve the 58 desired learning outcome, and that when these moments occur, they actively seek to read the audience of students for the purpose of adjusting the instruction of the session to ensure they have a tailored educational experience that meets them where they are as a student. Four percent (4%) (n=70) of responses in interviews contained the direct citing of facilitators engaging their students. Some varied in the manner in which they engage students, be it from engaging them in conversations, engaging them through noting students showing change in behavior over time, or other manners, facilitators teach the curriculum by engaging the students. Four percent (4%) (n=70) of responses given by facilitators focused on practicing and expressing vulnerability with students is how they effectively teach the GPP curriculum. JLMC staff described sharing personal life experiences that help connect with students, particularly experiencing life challenges at a similar age of the youth they address and teach, helps tremendously through being vulnerable. Vulnerability also is shown through letting down the traditional teacher-student persona and power structure in order to show more emotion, using relevant examples to the girls, and in some cases making jokes, helps students connect with the facilitators more effectively, accomplished through being vulnerable with student when facilitating and teaching the Girl Power curriculum. 59 Should agricultural education be taught to the participants through the GPP? When the facilitators were asked whether agriculture education should be taught to GPP participants, 100% of the responses (n=62) were in the theme of enthusiastically responding yes, and then deviating into the many different reasons it would be a good step for the program to take. Thirty-nine percent (39%) (n=62) of responses given in interviews believed teaching agriculture education would be beneficial for the potential for students to earn income. Facilitators of the GPP viewed the income generating potential favorably through the impact it could have as a value-added addition to their lives. Facilitators explained most families in the communities in which GPP is implemented, agriculture is the family’s main source of income, and that teaching students more effective smallholder farming techniques could greatly enhance their family’s yields, both ensuring more food for the family to sustain themselves with as well as the ability to grow more food for market and sale. The JLMC staff further explained agriculture is used as an income source that helps predominately provide and pay the family’s student’s school fees, medical fees and almost all other expenses, through agriculture. JLMC staff also explained the lack of agriculture education is striking given agriculture as an income generation activity is striking, and therefore also recommends agriculture be taught to students through the GPP. Some staff members saw the potential for income generation could be coincided with the opportunity to provide more safety to students by allowing them to earn supplemental income without having to leave the 60 school grounds where the girls would be safer otherwise. Staff members recalled being given the opportunity to earn this additional income for their own benefit when they were the GPP participants’ age and receiving agriculture related jobs, which they also explained provided the benefit of not relying on men to provide for themselves. Other facilitators explained quite simply that agriculture is the reason they were able to keep in school amongst multiple life challenges. GPP facilitators also viewed agriculture for income generation potential because they perceive other professions such as handcrafting as costing more than there may be willing and fiscally-able customers, and that agriculture would have a broader market for their students to utilize in a proper manner. Other facets of describing how agriculture could be beneficial as an income vernation opportunity is to educate students they could engage in smallholder firing and agrimarketing for additional income moving forward, and not necessarily solely pursuing agriculture for the rest of a students’ lives. Eighteen percent (18%) (n=62) of responses in interview explained they thought agriculture should be a part of the GPP for the potential it holds to improve the quality of their livelihood. Facilitators expanded on this answer by explaining to students that agriculture is a profession students can be proud in undertaking, and that the perception shift would be more effective if agriculture was not viewed as leftover work girls learn later as a result of not doing well in school, but rather as a potential route that is given time and attention to learn in the same space students are learning to pursue other professions as well. The facilitators describe agriculture being equated to pursuing work 61 in a salon, or as a teacher, or a doctor three of the most common responses for students to report wanting to pursue, would be beneficial for their overall livelihood. Other facilitators echoed this reason, but differed in regards to the potential it holds; GPP staff knows their students are not all going to be whatever they desire, and would want agriculture education to be a track that exists for girls to fall on in the case when a student doesn’t achieve her dreams. Facilitators also described student learning agriculture education in the GPP could teach them to be useful and productive could be helpful in a manner that helps the avoid circumstances in which they could be abused. Facilitators additionally described that while most of their students came from a farming and agriculturally-engaged home, some of their students did not, and that learning the value of hard work through farm labor would improve their livelihood in a unique and otherwise unobtainable way. Still, some facilitators considered agriculture education in GPP as an improvement to a students’ ability to improve their livelihood by participating in agriculture as a platform that could be used to discover students’ additional passions and interests. 18% (n=62) of responses framed agriculture education as a good opportunity for students because of the knowledge and skills that would be provided from learning it. The facilitators see agriculture education being taught to the participants of the GPP learning and knowing the variety of crops, and what certain breeds of those crops exist 62 and would work most efficiently, that are readily available for them to grow in their homes. Staff also saw agriculture education as a platform with which other important knowledge could be imparted onto the students relevant to their development, for instance teaching students learning what nutrients are important for them to have access to in order to be healthy, and which crops have the most of those nutrients they could plant and thus benefit from eating. Facilitators also described their students coming from potentially large tracts of land, where arable soil often goes unplanted; they see for these students the potential to understand the value and practice of developing smallholder agriculture projects for their homesteads. GPP staff described understanding the fact modern methods of agriculture are being developed every day, both in their nation of Uganda as well as abroad, and that for this reason alone students in GPP could be taught agriculture education through the lenses of innovation, technology and constantly- developing best practices. 10% (n=62) of responses given by JLMC staff also described agriculture education as having the potential to teach and call to action students to addressing larger challenges, both short and long term, regionally, nationally, even at a global scale. Some of these problems as described by the JLMC staffers include positively combatting climate change, teaching financial self-sufficiency to women so they do not rely on basic asset marketing through prostitution. Other challenges the staff perceive being able to teach students through agriculture education includes being in a position to succeed in agriculture as Uganda’s largest sector experiencing growth than other profession in the 63 nation, and in doing so help provide the resources for women to enter into the profession, another problem the staff perceive being able to be addressed through agriculture education. 6% (n=62) of the responses involved the facilitators stating they wanted agriculture education to be taught in the GPP, and immediately began planning the logistics of the proposed programming. Responses varied in how best to execute this theoretical programming, from having designated times throughout the school day for boys and girls to work on plots of land on the school campus to tend to and facilitate the growth of an agriculture project. Other facilitators’ responses made the comparison of schools having different clubs for students to participate in, and that an agriculture club could be a welcome and attractive addition in which agriculture education could be taught to students through. 6% (n=62) of responses focused on their reasoning’s why they would support the idea of agriculture education being taught through the GPP. These reasons included students already engaging in agriculture techniques at a crude, basic level in their homes already, and that the learning experience could be used as a way to point students to other opportunities, hopefully in higher education. 3% (n=62) of responses centered on the culture of the lives of the people of Central Uganda, and that teaching agriculture education would be an enhancement and investment into the community’s prior existing culture. 64 Think about your experiences as a facilitator of GPP. How do you feel you could improve to be a better facilitator? In order to understand how the staff view their selves and their ability to effectively facilitate the students of the program, they were asked how they could improve personally and professionally to be a more proficient teacher. 36% (n=42) of the responses response to this question centered on the need for a coaching structure being instilled for the facilitators of the program. Facilitators pointed out they believe improvement will only result from the observation of someone else with the express intent of noting what their strengths and weaknesses are. Some facilitators echoed this sentiment with the caveat they would prefer those observers being heir direct supervisors giving the feedback to them after observation of sessions. Other facilitators shared they would prefer more self-evaluation as staff members to improve their teaching and facilitating of the content. Staff members also noted they were interested in the possibility of JLMC contracting or collaborating with organizations that specialize in facilitation styles and improvement of those skills. 19% (n=42) of the staff’s responses centered on their feeling of needing to seek personal improvement before all else in order to become a better facilitator. Responses that were indicative of this theme include noting they would be better if they felt more empowered, if they helped girls more often with their problems they describe, in being relentless for what they fight for. Other examples of this theme include considering talking less and listening more in the classroom, practicing empathy more often, 65 understanding the diversity of experiences and challenges girls may be facing, and accepting those realities as challenges that must be surmounted rather than dismissed by JLMC staffers listening to girls. 17% (n=42) of responses revealed facilitators believe expanding and enriching their pedagogy would help them improve their teaching experiences with students. Examples of this theme include relying on the teaching aids provided to them more, incorporating technologies such as the internet into their learning experiences they facilitate, utilizing writing technologies to write better reports for the students, using more small skits as a manner students can learn from, and overall learning how to learn more to be in a state of constant improvement of one’s self as an evergreen learner. 14% (n=42) of answers to interview questions reflected the need to attend refresher courses provided by the GPP to keep up to date with best strategies to teach the content. From these refreshers courses, facilitators perceive learning how to best involve their students to assure they understand the content, staying “fresh” in their teaching ability, and overall ensuring the staff understands the content and how to best deliver it. 7% (n=42) of responses centered on the ability to improve their teaching methods with special detail being given to contextualizing content and learning experiences for each individual community and school in which GPP is taught. Examples of this theme include paying attention to specific culture attributes of their community in question, tailoring the content to best meet the specific needs either observed by the nonprofit staff 66 or expressed clearly by the community members present at the introductory meeting JLMC conducts with each community they consider teaching GPP in, and the need for their students to both use their local dialect of local language, most often Lugandan, while also using English in their teaching when appropriate for the challenge and lesson. 7% (n=42) of response indicated no improvement was needed on their part, mainly due to either having the best resources at our disposal or simply not facing changes in your teaching. If agriculture education became a component in the GPP, what would you require to be a successful facilitator? The final question posed to the Girl Power facilitators was what would they require to be successful should agriculture education be a part of the program. Unsurprisingly, the need for training in agriculture education or collaborating with a teacher-educator was the most common need listed in the interviews at 32% (n=57). The need for training and collaboration was diverse in the participant’s interpretation of what shape this would require and take. Some facilitators explained they would need to be taught what they consider the basics of agriculture; livestock rearing practices, appropriate seasons for planting specific crops, simple and low input projects that could be easier to teach and implement, and finally how to market the product of their agricultural toil. Other facilitators described the need not to receive the education for the purposes of teaching themselves, but rather the importance of identifying and partnering with an 67 agriculture specialist to either teach the students of GPP, or in some cases become teacher educators to empower the staff to be able to effectively teach agriculture education to the students. Other notable requests in this theme is the facilitators feeling they would need to have rich field experience before they feel comfortable effectively teaching students how to grow and market agricultural products. The staff also noted it would not be enough for them to teach the students to raise and grow livestock and crops, but they would also require the training to teach how to identify a market, sell to a customer base, and manage other small business details to make this an effective venture for the students. 28% (n=57) of responses given by JLMC staff discussed lesson plans and strategies they would require in order to teach agriculture education to the students of GPP. These ideas varied from explaining the intricacies and science of crop physiology, such as which crops are perennial versus annual, how to prepare a garden bed, how to underside and positively affect soil health for their crops, and other details helping the staff help the students understand. Moreover, the staff described within this theme the lesson plans requiring needing to engage the learners in less traditional classroom management and lesson planned styles, most notably the need to provide hands-on experience for the students, as well as making all teaching and lessons heavily visual in teaching aids and nature. 16% (n=57) of staff responses to this question addressed the need for agricultural inputs to be successful in teaching agriculture education. Examples of inputs offered by 68 the staff include a small plot of land from the school that could be utilized as a test plot, demonstration garden, nontraditional classroom to lead lessons in, etc. Other inputs include seeds and equipment to manage the crop. It could be noted no staff members mentioned the need for inputs required to raise livestock on the school grounds, or spoke of animal agriculture generally at all; most answers concerned what was required to teach crop-based smallholder agriculture. 11% (n=57) of responses given by participants dealt with the specifics of teaching and implementing marketing knowledge and skills to the students. Facilitators highlighted the need of students to learn to invest immediate net profits from their projects back into their agricultural pursuits in order to earn more money from the pursuit. Other facilitators noted the importance of identifying a market for the goods they would conceivably be teaching the students to invest in in order for the return to be profitable. Some staff members also noted the importance of building and teaching how to build storage units for the students to understand how to save goods for better time for them to go to market to sell. 9% (n=57) of response given in interviews were spent envisioning the future of what an agriculture education program within GPP would be. Facilitators spoke of a successful program would need a processing plant in the long run, overarching structure to scale and sustain the hopeful success and growth of the proposed program, the larger organization required to aid the program, and what would be required of the JLMC to start, educate, monitor and eventually entrust the students with their own agriculture 69 project. From this theme came a profound idea in regard to recommendations for the program that will be explained further in chapter five, but one staffer explained it would be better for the GPP if an agriculture program was started in the GPP club sessions, when the students who have graduated the normal three-day program become “GPP mentors” and meet once a month to do in-depth trainings, such as self-defense, financial literacy, and other topic areas. In the opinion of the staff member who explained how agriculture education could happen, the GPP club sessions would be best taught to the students there. This sentiment was echoed throughout the time in the field by multiple JLMC staffers, though this answer was only recorded in interview once. 5% (n=57) of responses given by the JLMC staff spoke only of the importance of agriculture experts conducting monitoring and evaluation of the project’s success, in addition to teaching lessons and knowledge along the way otherwise note covered by initial trainings. 70 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS The context of this study has been introduced and explained. The problems and opportunities have been made clear, as noted in Chapter I. The snapshot of how the circumstances of the people and community in question, as well as the framework through which the study has been lensed have been thoroughly explained in Chapter II. Chapter III explained the methodology and framework of this study in detail. Chapter IV offered the reader the opportunity to delve into the findings of this study in-depth. Now, this work will conclude with the conclusions, implications and recommendations for practice that was found as a result of this endeavor. After data collection and analysis were conducted as specified in detail in Chapter IV, the findings reveal that the indicators used within the Targeting Outcomes of Programs specify overwhelmingly that the required targets exist for JLMC to move with confidence to develop an agricultural education component for the GPP. Conclusions for Objective One Do stakeholders of Central Uganda want agriculture education to be taught within the GPP? Based on the SEE-indicative answers, it is clear both graduates and facilitators understand and desire the development and growth of the GPP in multiple different manners, ranging from infrastructure, financial means, and more, but both stakeholder groups seek to expand the program. 71 According to the practices-indicative interview responses, GPP graduates feel they have benefitted in multiple ways because of the GPP, and a majority of the graduates feel confident in growing and raising food for themselves and their families. Additionally, the facilitators of the program largely follow the curriculum as written. Based on responses soon to be explained through the remaining indicators, these educators are confident they could teach an agriculture-based curriculum. Doing so would further satisfy the charge given to JLMC by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, specifically goal two’s mission to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” (SDG 2, 2018, para. 1). KASA-question responses revealed most GPP graduates would aspire to pursue a career in agriculture in order to provide for their current and future family unit with the financial and food security they perceive agriculture to offer. This is consistent with previous family centered-findings ascertained by Gunter (2017); not only do familial- centered actions take precedence in decision-making, but these families also are often relying on each other for information on best agricultural practices and methods; the GPP could develop this learning network by empowering the graduates with better knowledge and information (Gunter et al., 2017). These findings vary slightly with what Mukembo, Edwards, Ramsey & Henneberry (2014) found in measuring the career interests of the participants of similar Young Farmers Clubs in eastern Uganda (Mukembo, Edwards, Ramsey & Henneberry, 2014). Furthermore, facilitators indicated they actively want and seek to become better instructors of the program. 72 The reaction-based questions yielded the clearest call for an agriculture education component of the GPP. Both graduates and facilitators indicated they would want agriculture education be taught for the potential it could provide practical, financial, and self-sufficient life lessons and benefits to future GPP participants. This opportunity for potential growth is similar to Ugandan findings made in the past that indicate the lack of access to this education often stymies progress within a community (Mukembo & Edwards, 2015). Based on these data, it can be reasonably concluded that the perceptions of the stakeholders of the GPP indicate they want agriculture education to be taught as a part of the program, similar to the methods used to measure perceptions of similar stakeholders David (2007) measured of Ugandan females (David, 2007). While there is some reticence about what the appropriate steps and methods to implementing new programming would be, these hesitations are effectively neutralized when both facilitator and graduate describe how beneficial they perceive agriculture faculty to be in the lives of their students, and understand the potential for the participants engaged in GPP to be empowered with that faculty as a result of the program. Implications for Objective One Implications that can be drawn from this study answer both research questions, as well as confirm the validity of the TOP framework. The self-reported subjective indicator approach to conducting a needs assessment for program development was effective for preliminary needs assessment. Due to the limitations to this study, there was 73 not an opportunity to conduct pre, post or delayed data to complete the assessment as Bennett and Rockwell designed. However, as the study explained in Chapter III, the components of TOP’s instrumentation measured suggests a majority of the steps of hierarchy are effective in the preliminary development of a program. To either confirm or correct these findings, more assessments utilizing TOP should be measured in similar settings and matching contexts so to collect comparable findings that can be measured and ultimately expand the literature. Practice Recommendations for Objective One Recommendations for future studies pertain both to practitioner and theory. From a practitioner perspective, JLMC should develop future programing under the proven conclusion that the relevant stakeholders want to be taught and want to teach how to provide for themselves and their families through agriculture education. As referenced in Chapter I of this study, the students of GPP live in majority rural communities that often are negatively affected by lack of access to quality education, financial opportunity and a reliable access to consistent and healthy food. While Chapter II explained Bennett & Rockwell’s (1995) framework requires both the development and evaluation halves of the theory to successfully utilize and measure a program’s effectiveness, this study still provides positive and encouraging indicators that students and staff both seek to teach agriculture education as a GPP component, in addition to the introductory measures that indicate the endeavor is feasible. 74 From a theory standpoint, more time and research should be devoted to following the TOP framework for its intended timeframe and data collection points. As Chapter II explained, case studies require prolonged engagement and observation in order to provide the most information from which knowledge can be gleaned (Yin, 2009). Unfortunately, the timeframe in which this study took place did not last the desired longevity due to the circumstances of the primary monitoring and evaluation contract that afforded the researcher the initial opportunity to conduct this study. Ideally, future research exploring this or similar focus areas will be within a context that allows for the amount of time investing perceived to be required to better conclude results. This will verify with more validity the assertions made in this study, or find contradictions and conflicting findings not discovered in this work. Conclusions for Objective Two What would be required for an agricultural education program to be conducted within the Girl Power Project? The interview responses corresponding to TOP subjective indicators for resources show a variety of reports from the staff who would be executing any agriculture education programming. A need for training the trainer looms large in the perspective of the GPP facilitators to be successful teaching agriculture education, among many other inputs that can be reviewed in better detail in Chapter IV. Chapter III explained in detail the facilitator sample measured in this study, and explained the sample of people who are responsible for the implementation of the 75 programming for the participants. Based on the observations of a young staff of Ugandan nationals from the surrounding regions, their expressed commitment to the empowerment mission of the GPP, and the enthusiasm and variety at which they described potential input required to facilitate this proposed curriculum as found in Chapter IV, it can be ascertained that the educators responsible for implementing an agriculture education curricula are ready and willing to aid and implement a comprehensive programming addendum. It can be concluded TOP reveals the need for training, inputs, collaboration and other facets as described by the respondents to make a potential agriculture education component successful for JLMC. Implications for Objective Two This research objective shares similar implications to the first research question in that the most complex level of Bennett & Rockwell’s TOP hierarchy, resources, showed positive signs for program development when the staff would be to conduct needs assessments of inputs. Also similar to the original research objective is the limitations in which the framework could be used; while it can be inferred the TOP framework would be successful throughout the program development and evaluation arm, that is not proven in this study due to the inability to collect data at multiple junctures. As Andreasen alluded in Chapter II, international case studies rooted in social science such as these are often riddled with mistakes, lapses, and minor errors that 76 compromise the study’s perfection, insofar as perfection is possible within qualitative literature (Andreasen, 2003). However, the findings of this study as presented in Chapter IV make the case that the facilitator staff of GPP have preliminary expectations as to what they require, as well as the capacity to refine and expand the resources both already available and needing to be required to conduct the development and implementation of this program. These preliminary expectations are similar to what Smithells (1994) found when examining women in rural development as well the diverse methods of training required to meet patrons’ needs (Smithells, 1994). These implications assert the framework of TOP sound, and the opportunity available for theory to be put into practice for the benefit of the respondents and participants on which this study focused. Practice Recommendations for Objective Two Recommendations gleaned from this study influence and affect this nonprofit’s specific practice. Most importantly, JLMC should begin to inquire as to what resources are necessary to potentially develop a pilot agriculture education component of the GPP, and should refer to the aforementioned findings in Chapter IV for the beginnings of a required resources list. As Chapter I described, the context of the central rural Ugandan region affords the right agronomic conditions for smallholder agriculture practices to thrive. However, as mentioned earlier in this study, the students that comprise this program are by most accounts not meeting their passion and drive to conduct these practices with the reality of actions taken, as elaborated in the Chapter IV findings. This 77 lapse is due in part to the sweeping challenges set by the institutions of power Crofts & Fisher (2012) alluded to, in which cultural norms yielding negative effects are often dictated to young girls, such as the previously mentioned correlation between female absenteeism and menstruation (Crofts & Fisher, 2012). This can also be placed on the specific needs, wants, and perceptions of educators students maintain, as similarly noted by Vincent & Torres (Vincent & Torres, 2015). All these reasons and past findings can be surmised by the affirmation that this study can resolutely assert the facilitators could begin moving towards the exploration of resources required for success with relative assurance that TOP’s indicators signal these steps taken are in a positive direction affecting overall change. Practice Recommendations for the Just Like My Child Foundation This study is presented to both the body literature as well as the JLMC client that hired Texas A&M University to conduct monitoring and evaluation on its programing. While previous subsections have addressed both research and practitioner matters, the following recommendations are specific to the JLMC, specifically regarding the dissemination and illustration of this information. JLMC functions as any other nonprofit, in that its viability and livelihood depends on donations from stakeholders that have a vested interest in the mission and objectives it carries out to communities. The investment made into this study, and in larger part the monitoring and evaluation contracted efforts mentioned previously in this work, composed a significant amount of JLMC budget, and will call for explanation and 78 communication to the donors who possibly unknowingly funded this on the part of the empowerment group. Suggestions and recommendations to accomplish this expression and justification or information range large, but among these broad-sweeping suggestions are a few explained here in further detail. JLMC could frame the findings presented here as a further affirmation of their work across community. More specifically, the message that the most efficient strategies to influence an entire community start by impacting groups of citizens that hold larger stakes in the public influence should be communicated. That efficient influencing of the community can most effectively reached by investing in the female student demographic that the GPP targets. While it is universally agreed the priority of GPP is to impact the girl students first and foremost, the findings of this study suggest the girls are more concerned with investing in their family units that compose the larger community when grouped together. Therefore, JLMC could message the donations made to GPP as an investment in entire communities that may possibly be brought to prosperity, as a result of the donor’s investment in the graduates of GPP. In doing so, the nonprofit stands to possibly target larger and more diverse streams of income through donations given by a wider sample of donors. Furthermore, donors of the nonprofit could be further impacted to give more by the expression and affirmation of what was already largely known; that the GPP changes lives. While this has been well-established and accepted, the findings of Chapter IV give more validation and statistical robustness to long-made claims reported 79 anecdotally by staff and facilitators of the students. If JLMC were to seek diversified and varied donations, a potential route moving forward could be to attach these specific figures found in this study to better illustrated and visually appealing mediums used in advertisements and campaigns in the future. Conclusion The operating supposition of this study was that stakeholders would like agriculture education to be taught through the program, but not as main component of the core curriculum. This supposition proved partially true. The respondents and stakeholders overwhelmingly indicated they would like an agriculture education component to be taught in some way within GPP. While it may be true the stakeholders think it should belong in an extension apart from the main curriculum training of GPP, they did not specify this often-enough to represent a significant percentage of responses analyzed. This may be due to an error in the instrument’s customization, and would be a recommendation to explore for further and future studies. The GPP curriculum empowers young women to develop a better life for themselves. Agriculture education should be taught within the GPP. However, due to the combination of understanding how the curriculum is designed to be instructed and what specific objectives it should be meant to address, joined with the recommendations of the staff and the interest shown by the participants, it is the final conclusion of this study that agriculture education should be taught to the GPP graduates in their club sessions meant for higher and advanced levels of GPP programing. It would more logical a 80 decision for Just Like My Child agriculture programming development for agriculture education to be taught alongside similar value-added practices club sessions such as financial literacy, self-defense, and hopefully in the future, smallholder agricultural faculty. JLMC continues to be a leader of Central Uganda in educating and empowering young women who break the cycle of poverty, protect their physical as well as mental health, and improve their wellbeing for themselves and their families. This small nonprofit which started with a group of people who wanted to fix a vast and complex disparity within the communities of Central Uganda has grown to a busy, expanding, and vibrant NGO, if still a relatively small size with a bright future. As opportunities and resources for the nonprofit continue to expand and present themselves in the future, many of the challenges which will accompany the group will pertain to how and in what fashion should they grow their services. After careful deliberation and intentional inquiry, this work finds its end at the nonprofit’s beginning of a crossroads in which future possibilities and diverse realities lie ahead. This study is not a decision memo, but rather a recommendation; the JLMC has what it takes to teach their students agriculture education. Both the students and facilitators have expressed an overwhelming interest in the development of the program. 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Retrieved from http://0c43c196086d41d35679- 60e8a72e2d60353e590e84e3562c2b51.r53.cf3.rackcdn.com/files/7613/7164/584 5/UNTYING_THE_KNOT_-_March_2013.pdf 91 APPENDIX Thesis Timeline Document Table 1 Thesis Timeline Document Research Timetable (2018-2019) Activities Time Frame Persons Responsible Defend thesis proposal, April, 2018 MS Student and Thesis revise via Chair committee’s feedback, submit IRB, receive travel shots Address possible IRB May, 2018 MS Student and Thesis revisions, prepare Chair, IRB leaders for travel, secure Dr. Pina and Dr. department Hamie recorders 92 Table 1 Continued Activities Time Frame Persons Responsible Return to US, travel back August, 2018 MS Student to Texas for fall semester Take five hours of research September-December, MS Student with Dr. Strong in 2018 ALEC 691, Dr. Lincoln’s EDAD 690, analyze data, write remaining chapters based on findings. Submit final draft for December, 2018 MS Student review by Dr. Strong, proofread, revisions, submit completed thesis 93 Table 1 Continued Activities Time Frame Persons Responsible Defend thesis, make February, 2019 MS Student, Thesis revisions as Committee directed by committee 94 Research Questions 1. Do stakeholders of Central Uganda want agriculture education to be taught within the Girl Power Project? 2. What would be required for an agricultural education program to be conducted within the Girl Power Project? 95 Intended Interview Questions Basic and Unstructured Guide for Girl Power Project Graduates 1. What have you learned through the Girl Power Project? a. What skills have you developed? b. Do you feel like these skills might help you get a job in the future? 2. How do you feel about your agricultural skills- growing vegetables, fattening animals, etc.? a. Do you have access to a farm, whether living or working on one? 3. If given the choice, would you choose a career in agriculture? Why or why not? 4. What more would you like to be done in Girl Power Project? Why? 5. Should agriculture education be a part of the Girl Power Project? Why or why not? Basic and Unstructured Guide for Girl Power Project Teachers and Facilitators 1. What was the reasoning behind how the program objectives for the GPP curriculum were written? 2. How do you teach the GPP curriculum? 3. Should agricultural education be taught to the participants through the Girl Power Project? 96 Basic and Unstructured Guide for Girl Power Project Graduates Continued 4. Think about your experiences as a facilitator of GPP. How do you feel you could improve to be a better facilitator? 5. If agriculture education became a component in the Girl Power Project, what would you require to be a successful facilitator? 97 IRB Review Letter 98