A Life Knowledge Approach to Life Skills: Empowering Boys with New Conceptions of Masculinity

This chapter argues for a structural, human rights and social justice-based approach to life skills, contextualized in an urban setting in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. This approach takes a more socially and politically embedded view of life skills than most other life skills approaches, which take a more individualized, decontextualized, and apolitical approach. I argue that since our lives are framed and structured by the socio-political contexts in which they are lived, a deeper conceptual understanding of these contexts is essential in order to navigate this terrain skillfully and successfully. This chapter provides a descriptive analysis of a school program for girls and boys from marginalized backgrounds, which educates them to become active democratic citizens with gender-just perceptions and behaviors. The school, Prerna, was established and is run by Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF). Prerna focuses on life outcomes and learning outcomes, with the educational goal of educating its students to develop egalitarian and gender-just habits, and the intellectual, emotional, and behavioral skills that will enable them to live as equal persons, including respecting others’ (girls’) right to equality. This chapter focuses particularly on the school’s program for boys, where they are empowered to develop an egalitarian conception of masculinity and of themselves in relationship to girls.