A Gender Digital Divide? Women Learning English through ICTs in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, the BBC Janala project is using multimedia to give adults opportunities to learn English for economic purposes. English lessons are available on mobile phones, the web, a newspaper and a TV show. Despite the large numbers of people accessing the BBC Janala media products, there is a gendered digital divide, with much fewer women accessing the web and mobile lessons in particular. In this paper, I look at case studies of three adult women learning English through the BBC Janala mobile, web and TV lessons, the barriers faced and the perceived English learnt. Findings indicate that gender inequalities in Bangladesh mean that although the women have high barriers to participation, learning English through ICTs helps to break down some of these gendered barriers. However, the different ICTs also carry different perceptions of educational value. Despite the web lessons having the highest gendered barriers to participation, they were perceived to carry the most educational value. Learning English through mobile opened up access to the web lessons, giving the women more choices in their learning. This means that although mobile learning may not be seen as a valid form of learning by the respondents, it can however create access to methods of learning that are perceived as more valid. The research also found that social norms severely restrict the women’s choices of the ICT they use and there is a real possibility of a future gendered English and ICT skill imbalance in Bangladesh. As a response to some of the issues identified in this research, the British Council in Bangladesh is piloting an English and ICT project for girls, in partnership with BRAC Bangladesh, to try and address this gender digital divide. Author