Paper short abstract:

Hopes and frustrations of girls and women of inhabitants of Southern Zagros in Iran will be studied to show the tension between kinship and public domain, as supporters of individuals’ status and well being in society.

Paper long abstract:

Education has been a magical term implying progress, success, freedom for women. After few decades, results of indiscriminate hope is becoming evident. Questions regarding how much education, education in what fields, relationship of education with employment possibilities, relationship between jobs and other responsibilities facing women, and many others are being asked by women today. Is higher education a sacrifice on the part of women? Are there enough jobs for women with higher education? What are prospects for women having higher education to have their expected familial life also? Is the protection offered to individuals through law, insurance and other civic possibilities, the same as what was offered to them through family relationships? In regions where family gives power and protection and even job possibilities, how are women negotiating in these different domains. These are some of the questions I shall try to answer, studying a rural area in Southern Iran. Girls of a sedentarized population, descendants of previous pastor nomads, highly motivated, with great hopes they attend schools, and in their compositions they surface their hopes and these will be the material I shall study. Then I shall deal with employment of women in the same region, seeing if their numbers, their expectations and their hopes have been actualised.