First-Generation Female Students in Bihar: Higher Education and the Struggle for Social Mobility

Abstract

This article explores the educational journeys of first-generation female students in Bihar, a state marked by poverty, caste hierarchies, and gendered restrictions. Drawing on twenty in-depth interviews and participant observation at Mahatma Gandhi Central University (2024-25), the study explores how economic insecurity, weak school foundations, patriarchal control, and the digital divide shape access to higher education. Findings show that women from Dalit and OBC backgrounds remain underrepresented, reflecting broader structural disadvantages reported in the Bihar Caste Survey (2022) and national datasets. Yet, higher education also emerges as a site of transformation, students reported increased confidence, symbolic capital within families, and aspirations for postgraduate study or government employment. Situating these narratives within Sen’s capability approach, Bourdieu’s theory of capital, and Dalit feminist perspectives, the study argues that education is simultaneously constrained and empowering. It enables social mobility and cultural recognition, while reproducing inequalities that demand structural reforms. The article concludes that higher education must integrate both redistribution and recognition if it is to serve as a tool of social justice.