6.4 Self-confidence
Confidence acquired through education helped respondents to cope with their lives in
a number of ways:
• Education gave Elsa the confidence that she could cope with life after her
husband left her with three kids.
• For Denise, the confidence she developed through participation in an IT course
helped her to face the fact that there was something seriously wrong with her
son, and to seek appropriate help.
• Mandisa trained in carpentry and later in building management, where she faced
attitudes and behaviours that were sexist. The confidence in her abilities that she
acquired through these courses helped her to cope with the sexist attitudes of
fellow students and lecturers at college, and with colleagues at work
subsequently.
“ I think it made me more determined. I can do it, I can do it with any of the
guys’. And I suppose that has aided me because to be able to work ... You have
to ignore comments, or give as good as you get. ”
Aurea had experienced severe difficulties when she moved to England with
little English or knowledge of the country, and attended a school where there
appears to have been no extra support, and where she was ignored. She
describes how her previous experiences in school in her own country
(Venezuela) contributed to a sense of her own worth and a belief that things
would turn out alright in the end, which sustained her through her difficulties:
“ Those memories [of school] helped me to be able to say, You can do it, of
course you can. You’re more than able to do it if you just keep focusing, move
on, carry on and you will make it. One day you will make it.’ ”
This reflects a belief that there is an element of justice in the world, which appears to
have developed, partly at least, through school.
• Danielle had stopped work to care for her children and disabled mother:
“ Ijust felt that all I was doing was caring for other people, and I wasn’t doing
anything for myself ... I’d really come down and the confidence and the buzz I’d
got from working had totally gone within a matter of nine months I would say,
so when I came to this course it took me a few weeks to get back in the rhythm
of learning again I really took off, back in a sort of learning situation, doing my
homework, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my confidence came back up and
from that I then joined a women’s group - a women’s self-help group and at the
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