Impacts of Life Planning Skills Training on Changing Disadvantaged Young Adolescents’ Gender Awareness in China

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is one of five underdeveloped ethnic minority autonomous regions in China and heavily hit by the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic, In 2006, the Guangxi Women’s Federation and PATH launched the Spring Bud Healthy Development project to integrate participatory life-planning skills (LPS) training into existing curricula in primary and middle schools, including a focus on gender equity and healthy behaviors. The intervention spanned the period of April 2006 to July 2007. I am happy to be the person that responsible for the field implementation of this project.

In this reference, I am presenting the results of the impact evaluation of this school-based life planning skills training among disadvantaged young in-school adolescents. The main research questions include: Can the life planning skills curriculum introduced improve young adolescents’ self confidence, their pro-equal gender norms and their knowledge of reproductive? A quasi-experiment study design with both baseline and end-line survey was adopted among students of Grade 4 and Grade 7 in three project counties. Students in another three non-project counties, matched with demographic and socioeconomic profiles, have been selected as control groups. Pre-tested self-administered anonymous questionnaires were utilized as instruments to collect data. The sample sizes ranged from 700 to 800 for both grades in the two waves of survey. Cluster sampling using class as the cluster unit was employed to select participants in both interventional and control groups.

The main findings for my study include students received life planning skills training showed significant improvements in their self confidence and their knowledge of pubertal development. However, gender awareness among Grade 7 students has not significantly changed, as it did with Grade 4 students. Such absence of project impact suggests that, by the mid-teen, stereotypes of gender discrimination are more resist to change. The development status of adolescents has to be taken into consideration for future similar projects.

Jianhua Yang is a graduated PhD student (2006) of the Gates Institutes and now working in China on HIV prevention and behavioral change communication field.