Date of Award
Summer 5-15-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Educational Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Kabba Colley
Second Advisor
Dr. Patricia Crane de Galarce
Third Advisor
Dr. Karen L Anderson
Abstract
Abstract
This study examines how increased access to higher education among Khasi boys reshapes family roles, inheritance customs, and cultural identity within the matrilineal society of Meghalaya, India. While matriliny has often been portrayed either as empowering women or disadvantaging men, limited scholarship has explored how access to higher education interacts with gendered inheritance structures and moral responsibility within such systems. This research addresses that gap by investigating how educated sons, youngest daughters (Ka Khadduh), and elders experience continuity and change in contemporary Khasi families.
Guided by Cultural Capital Theory, Social Role Theory, and Cultural Modernization Theory, the study employed a qualitative interpretivist design. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively selected participants representing generational and gender positions within matrilineal households. Data were analyzed using a three-stage coding process informed by grounded theory principles, supported by reflexive journaling, iterative coding, and triangulation across participant groups to enhance credibility and dependability.
Findings indicate that increased access to higher education does not disrupt matrilineal structures. Instead, it reshapes them through negotiation and moral recalibration. Matriliny emerges not primarily as a system of privilege, but as a moral economy grounded in responsibility, emotional labor, and relational continuity. Educated sons describe belonging without inheritance and heightened expectations of self-reliance, while youngest daughters experience inheritance as custodianship marked by sustained caregiving and obligation rather than autonomy. Education functions as uneven cultural capital, expanding opportunity and symbolic legitimacy without equally redistributing security or authority. Social change unfolds incrementally through reflective adaptation rather than institutional rupture.
The study contributes to scholarship on kinship, gender, and modernization by demonstrating selective modernization within a matrilineal context. It reframes matriliny as negotiated continuity rather than static tradition or collapsing structure. For educational leadership, the findings underscore the importance of culturally responsive policy and practice that recognize the moral and relational frameworks shaping students’ lives in indigenous and kinship-based societies.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
John, Boby, "Educated Sons and Evolving Traditions: A Qualitative Exploration of Male Family Roles, Inheritance Customs and Cultural Identity in Matrilineal Meghalaya." (2026). Educational Studies Dissertations. 22.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/educational_studies_dissertations/22
