Chapter 3: Assessing the Influence of Female-Led Language Acquisition Programs on Life Satisfaction and Gender Role Attitudes in Women and Children in the Dominican Republic

Unequal gender dynamics in the Dominican Republic adversely affect women, especially women living in impoverished areas called bateyes. These women and their children are unlikely to attend school and may become victims of domestic abuse. To determine whether an international female-led program can positively influence gender role attitudes, life satisfaction, and hope for the future, we assessed these factors in women and children who were and were not affiliated with the Batey Rehab Project (BRP). The sample size, which was limited by BRP enrollment, was too small to observe an effect of the BRP on gender role attitudes, but there was a trend that women in the BRP, especially the younger women, reported less traditional gender role beliefs. In turn, women who reported more traditional marianismo attitudes also expressed significantly greater life satisfaction. We interpreted these results as the BRP shifting gender role attitudes away from traditional marianismo attitudes. Rather than improving life satisfaction, this shift away from conforming with cultural norms within the bateyes may create cognitive dissonance in the women and may partially account for why the BRP program did not affect life satisfaction of these women and their children. Shifting away from marianismo attitudes is linked with safer lives for the women, and our results suggest that the program is primarily impacting the younger women. Thus, the positive impact of the BRP may take place over the course of generations. This work highlights the complex interaction of gender role beliefs and the impact of nonprofit education programs, highlighting the need for additional research if the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s global priority of gender equality is to be substantively measured and accomplished beyond simplistic parity measures.