Why Parents Sent their Daughters to School: A Qualitative Study of Girls’ Schooling in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan in 2018

Afghanistan's history suggests that women's rights are integrally connected to cultural norms and political power. Known as the worst place for women and having the highest level of gender inequality in education, Afghanistan and its people are often portrayed in the Western media as passive and backward individuals with sexist and uncivilized cultural values. This study examines the questions of women's access to education in post-2001 Afghanistan based on the narratives and accounts of schoolgirls and their parents in one of the most insecure provinces of Afghanistan. The study was conducted in the summer of 2018. It draws on 18 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews with schoolgirls and their parents in Kandahar, a southern province of Afghanistan that was the battlefield for the Taliban and American forces for over twenty years. The findings suggest that pragmatic reasons such as security, poverty, and access were the most significant barriers to girls’ education, challenging the traditional assumptions that perceive Afghan cultural values as the only obstacle to girls’ education. I argue that contrary to the stereotypical depiction of Afghanistan and its culture, local actors and cultural values played a vital role in promoting girls’ education.